OpenAI Top Researcher Leaves to Found Conduit for Non-Invasive Mind Reading
mcraddock · x · 2026-08-08
Naomi Bashkansky, a top researcher at OpenAI, has left to join startup Conduit, aiming to train AI models to non-invasively read human thoughts.
Currently, without implants or surgery, their AI can read a stranger's mind through the skull with 45% accuracy. To capture the faint brain signals, the team operates in an SF basement, cutting the building's main power and running on batteries to shield out everyday electrical noise. They have collected 10,000 hours of brain data so far.
Bashkansky describes this as the "GPT-2 era of mind reading," predicting that by 2027, developers will wear thought-streaming headbands, and by 2035, AI will feel less like a tool and more like a limb.
Related event: Former OpenAI Researcher Joins BCI Startup Conduit(2 posts)→
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