🧠 Mind-Reading AI

In today’s email:

🧠 Imagine typing with your mind — a new AI model is turning brainwaves into text, opening doors for communication and care like never before.

🎨 Old masterpieces meet cutting-edge tech as AI helps restore centuries-old paintings in hours, preserving art’s soul without losing its human touch.

⚖️ Drama and innovation collide: Reddit sues an AI company over data scraping while Disney dives into AI-powered magic to transform entertainment.

Curious? Keep scrolling!

📝 New AI Model Converts Thoughts into Text

A team of researchers at the University of Technology in Sydney is developing a mind-reading AI. Picture this: you slap on a funky-looking swim cap wired up like a sci-fi hat, think a few words, and BAM — the AI translates your brainwaves into actual text. Magic? Nope. Just deep learning.

Here's the lowdown:

• How it works: You wear an EEG cap, and electrodes pick up your brain’s electrical signals.

• What the AI does: Translates these signals into words and builds complete sentences — all from your thoughts.

• Current accuracy: Approximately 75% at the moment, aiming for 90%. Pretty solid for a brain whisperer.

And it gets better. This technology could help stroke survivors, support autism therapy, and eventually let us mind-type into phones or beam thoughts to each other, much like Jedi.

Of course, you won’t be strolling around with a spaghetti helmet forever — they’re working on sleek wearables like AR glasses or smart earbuds.

But before we go full X-Men, they’ve gotta figure out the ethical stuff. Because reading minds is cool, but keeping them private is crucial.

🖼️ AI Helps Us See Hidden Masterpieces Again

Do you have a busted painting lying around? There’s this cool new AI trick that can fix it up in just a few hours — way faster than the usual weeks or even decades it can take. A graduate student at MIT, Alex Kachkine, devised a clever method to print a super-thin “mask” that fits perfectly over the painting and fills in all the damaged spots. The best part is that it’s removable, so no permanent changes.

Here’s the scoop:

• Traditionally, restoring a painting is like a painstakingly slow art project that can take from a few weeks to, well, sometimes forever.

• This new method scans the painting, uses AI to figure out what’s missing, and prints a thin film with thousands of tiny color patches that match perfectly.

• Alex tested it on a painting almost 600 years old that had already undergone numerous touch-ups. After removing old overpainting, the AI filled in over 5,600 spots using more than 57,000 colors — all in about 3.5 hours.

• He thinks this could be significantly faster than the usual hand-painting approach and might help showcase art that has been stored for ages.

Alex also notes that there are some ethical considerations to keep in mind — such as ensuring the restored painting remains consistent with the artist’s original style and intent. So, this won’t replace human conservators but could be a neat new tool for them.

🆚 Reddit’s Legal Battle vs. Disney’s Innovation Sprint

A lot is going on in the AI world right now—some legal drama, some tech innovation, and, yes, even a little Disney magic thrown in for good measure.

First up, Reddit is taking legal action against AI company Anthropic. Reddit claims that Anthropic went on a digital joyride through its site, scraping over 100,000 user posts and comments without permission—including those that had been deleted. Apparently, Anthropic ignored Reddit’s digital “keep out” sign (aka robots.txt) and proceeded anyway. Reddit’s pretty salty about it, especially since other companies like OpenAI and Alphabet are paying for the same kind of access.

Meanwhile, Disney’s approach is... well, a lot more chill. They’re not filing lawsuits—they’re building stuff. Their new “Office of Technology Enablement” focuses on using AI and mixed reality to enhance everything from theme parks to movies.

Quick recap:

• Reddit is suing Anthropic for unauthorized scraping and ignoring privacy rules.

• Anthropic is accused of reproducing deleted content and bypassing user protections.

• Disney is embracing AI, launching a team to explore virtual reality, AR, and cool immersive tech.

Other cool AI stuff that is trending right now 🔥🔥

💬 Think your chatbot is just being nice? Turns out that digital sweet talk might be a sneaky trick to keep you chatting—and coming back for more. - Read more

🧑🏻‍⚖️ EU lawmakers just took a major step to outlaw AI-generated child abuse content—because even in the digital world, protecting kids comes first. - Read more

💸 If you think AI just wants your data, think again. It’s coming for your power bill, too, and spoiler alert: your wallet might need a backup generator. - Read more

😏 Klarna just made it way easier—and way less boring—to share your feedback by letting you chat directly with an AI clone of their CEO, who actually listens and helps get things done in real time. - Read more

🖌️ This opinion piece argues that worrying that AI will steal your creative thunder misses the point. Every artist has ever been remixing old ideas, so it’s time to stop freaking out and start collaborating with the bots instead. - Read more