News Report #3

How's Your Date Going? Ask the Artificially Intelligent Table
The Wired Campus: Chronicle of Higher Education
by: Steve Kolowich
http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/3614/hows-your-date-going-ask-the-artificially-intelligent-table

Summary:

Three undergraduates attending Carnegie Mellon University developed a computer technology that can read signals of a dinner date. It’s an “artificially intelligent dinner table that reads physical gestures and speech patterns and lets the participants know how the date is going in real time.” The table has been named Eye Table. The table uses a pair of motion sensors that communicate with each that each participant wears on his/her head. The sensors can tell if there are awkward silences and if the participants are looking at each other in the eyes and analyzes it and then relays the information to the participant.
In addition to analyzing the date if the Eye Table feels like the date is going well it will list a number of activities to do post dinner or it might tip off the waiter that the couple may want another bottle of wine. On the other hand, if it senses that the date isn’t going that well it will conveniently list numbers to local cabs.
Dan Eisenberg, one of the three inventors, recognizes that the idea in concept is amazing however he realizes that subjects who know they are being studied behave differently. He also says that live feed information could potentially make a bad date worse or derail a perfectly good one. The goal on this project was never to revolutionize the dating scene; it was merely a “proof – of – concept that they hoped would inspire others to think about how computers can understand human emotions”

My Reaction:

Making computers understand human behavior is a scary subject. With movies such as IROBOT and Disney’s Smart House the mere thought of a computer having emotions is fatal. In the article though it said nothing about computers having actual emotions but I think that after a computer can understand human emotions it will be able to mimic them hence the Smart House. If we are going to make computers understand human emotions then they must also learn and understand the laws and right from wrong. I understand that this technology is in the beginning stages but using this technology on an actual date will probably make things more awkward. Not only that but it would look weird. I think if this were to be an actual product then it would have to be able to read two peoples gestures and speech while only one person knows about it. Most times its one person who is nervous or wants to do something extra special to make sure the date goes well. I think the future of this product will be smaller and not an entire table and be used by one person while still observing the other.