Woman with paralysis speaks through avatar thanks to brain implant
NBCSep 05, 2023
The Facts
According to a study published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, a severely paralyzed woman has been able to speak through a digital avatar using a brain-computer interface.
The woman, Ann Johnson, 48, suffered a brainstem stroke when she was 30, leaving her severely paralyzed and unable to speak.
The Spin
Narrative A
Artificial intelligence helping two paralyzed people communicate audibly in close to real-time is nothing short of a miracle. Although it's a scientific proof of concept, turning the technology into a wireless medical device can bring us much closer to making AI a natural solution for paralyzed patients to speak and express clearly.
Narrative B
Experiments that use electrodes to read brain signals date back to the late 1990s, but the research and its implementation in everyday life have yet to make strides. As a crucial next step is to create the brain-computer interface's wireless version that would most likely be implanted beneath the skull — potentially raising privacy issues — it's too early to imagine a future where we could restore fluent and accurate conversation to paralyzed people.