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June 27, 2006
Forget the wife: your PC understands you
Our worst fears have been realised. They've now come up with an "emotionally aware computer" that can apparently read your face like a book. It "sees" you through its camera lens, and by tracking 24 facial "feature points", such as the edge of the nose, the eyebrows and the corners of the mouth, can interpret a total of 20 key facial movements, including a nod or shake of the head, a raise of the eyebrow or a pull on the corner of the mouth.
According to Peter Robinson, professor of computer technology at the University of Cambridge, the EQ-enhanced computer could help improve driver safety, and help people with autism, but - as if we couldn't guess - "there are potential commercial uses, such as picking the right time to sell someone something".
Won't it feel a little, well, off-putting, to know that your computer is staring at you? That it's trying to work out whether that facial twitch that you've suddenly developed indicates pleasure, pain, or something else entirely? Will it understand irony? Will it become neurotic, just like us?
Already the artificial environments of MMORPGs like Second Life are beginning to blur with, if not become a preferable reality for some of those who play them. Could this spell the end of a good deal of human discourse? Maybe we'll spend our evenings playing poker with the PC.
And we're reminded of those "intelligent agents" that were supposed to be ever so friendly to their humans, who would dispatch them to do all sorts of business over the Internet. As we recall, when one of these agents discovered that its owner's hard drive was full, it helpfully deleted - without wasting time by a asking permission - a whole lot of files and directories. On the whole, we're not in favour of encouraging this sort of familiarity. Particularly if the bloody thing is waiting for an opportunity to deliver a sales pitch.
Posted by cw at June 27, 2006 11:50 AM
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Comments
Forget the Wife
That's just what a "friend" of mine does on the internet.
My "friend" is so worried by this new understanding by his pc that he asked me to write about his concerns. You see "he" is in the habit of connecting to certain sites which have certain sights of various ladies.
He only looks out of curiosity and he is concerned that his pc might mis-interpret his responses, particularly his facial expressions and the dribbling from his mouth which he assures me is related to ill fitting dentures.
Can you assure my "friend" that his pc will not misinterpret his facial expressions and perhaps dispatch an automatic email to his darling wife?
Steven
Posted by: steven ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://bleedingedge.com.au/blog/nav-commenters.gif)
at July 1, 2006 08:16 PM