Computers that read your mind

Around a year ago I had written a column on a project called MyLifeBits, a Microsoft research project, that records every byte, every conversation, every emotion, every photo you clicked, every line you typed, every word you said. An archive of that could recall nearly every waking moment of a person’s life. Now comes another interesting project that could reshape the entire technological and advertising arena.

An Emotional Machine

A machine that can read your mind. Sounds interesting, doesn’t it? Well that could be a reality in the next few years. Scientists are working on a computer that can read an individual’s mind by interpreting facial expressions like a raised eyebrow, a look or a nod of the head.

Scientists at the University of Cambridge, England, and MIT, USA are together undertaking the “emotionally aware” computer project. The computer can so far recognize 24 facial expressions generated by actors. Prof Peter Robinson, University of Cambridge hopes to get more data from the public to determine whether someone is bored, interested, confused, or agrees or disagrees when it is unveiled at a science exhibition in London on Monday, July 3. The technology is being showcased for 4 days at an exhibition organized by the Royal Society.

According to Prof Peter Robinson “The system we have developed allows a wide range of mental states to be identified, just by pointing a video camera at someone.”

Behind the “emotionally aware” computer

According to Peter Robinson the new computer system is based on the latest research in the theory of mind by Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, Director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge. His research provides a taxonomy of facial expressions and the emotions they represent. In 2004, his group published the Mind Reading DVD, an interactive computer-based guide to reading emotions from the face and voice. The DVD contains videos of people showing 412 different mental states. “We have developed computer programs that can read facial expressions using machine vision, and then infer emotions using probabilistic machine learning trained by examples from the DVD” says Peter Robinson

The Potential of an “emotionally aware” computer

Marketing in this age and time happens in the mind of the consumer. Imagine if a marketer knew the exact emotion a potential consumer was feeling at a particular point of time, the power the advertiser could add to his advertisement. Prof Robinson says, “Imagine a computer that could pick the right emotional moment to try to sell you something, a future where mobile phones, cars and websites could read our mind and react to our moods.”

The impact of an “emotionally aware” computer could be immense. Imagine washing machines, mobile phones, websites, electronic gizmos, cars or just about any machine being able to read our emotions and give a suitable response. Prof.
Robinson suggests it could be used in online teaching to determine if a student is grasping the information, or in cars to check the driver’s state of mind while driving.

According to Robinson they are working with a big car company and they envision this being employed in cars within five years.

Smart Future

The future is in smart devices. A computer is at the heart of almost every functional electronic gizmo in this day and age. A smart computer that can read its masters mind would lead us into another revolution. A super effective future of super smart devices.

Puneet Mehrotra is a web strategist at www.cyberzest.com and edits www.thebusinessedition.com you can email him on puneet@cyberzest.com