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Sabi Raises Funds To Develop A Mind-Reading Hat
HatGPT // Illustration by Kate Walker
A tech startup called Sabi is developing a baseball cap that can read your mind, allowing you to control AI agents without having to type or speak.
Why It Fits: Several companies have entered the brain-computer interface industry in recent years, including Neuralink, Synchron, and Precision Neuroscience. The problem is that all of these startups require some form of brain surgery for their tech to work. That’s not scalable.
Beneath The Fabric: Sabi is betting that making brain-computer interfacing possible without cutting open your head will appeal to… well, pretty much everyone.
Sabi’s cap can turn neural signals into text-based prompts using 100,000 EEG (electroencephalogram) chips that detect brain activity through the wearer’s hair and scalp.
That’s because “all conscious thinking happens in the outermost 2 centimeters of the brain. Each time we think of something (like an apple), a specific bit of the brain that could be as small as one square millimeter gets activated,” according to CEO Rahul Chhabra.
The company combines these disparate, microscopic signals using a “brain foundational model” trained on 100,000 hours of painstakingly labeled neural data.
The model allegedly “tries to fill in the gaps and estimate words that are implied but not explicit in people’s thoughts.”
Closing Thoughts: Sabi’s prototype, which looks more like a helmet than a cap right now, can interpret people’s thoughts with up to 77% accuracy… at least for those who have been actively using it for over two weeks. The first cap will be demoed at CES in January and is slated to be available next year. Allegedly, 10,000 people are already on the waiting list.
According to Forbes, Sabi has already raised $50 million in seed funding in a round led by renowned tech investor Vinod Khosla. His reasoning: “Very simply, thought-to-computer input is a sexy idea.” Hopefully, the hat makes you look sexy, too.
The Future: Soon, many people in the office may be doing their work simply by staring at their screens.
Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited, polled, and copy-edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.