Robotics Reference
In-Depth Information
without our having to ask them. Furthermore, our thoughts and emo-
tions can be transmitted to anyone we wish, by e-mail, text message or a
voicemail using a synthesized version of our own voice, direct from our
wearable. Imagine being able to think romantic thoughts about some-
one on the other side of the room/street/town/country/world and have
him or her receive these thoughts exactly as you have them, without your
needing to pick up the phone or go to the keyboard.
Civil liberties groups will doubtless pounce heavily on government
agencies and others who plan to use the mind-reading technologies of
the future. It is easy to suggest many ways in which such technologies
could be employed for nefarious purposes. But on the plus side, we
can envisage the day when crime becomes a thing of the past because
criminal thoughts in humans will be detectable by police robots,
´ala
the
movie
Minority Report
. And people who are psychologically disturbed
will be monitored and perhaps helped on the road to recovery by mind-
reading therapist robots that incorporate an expert system for psychiatric
diagnosis and treatment.
Mind-reading technology
9
has attracted the interest of John Norseen
and his research group at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company, one
of the US government's leading defense contractors.
What I am encouraging is multisensor analysis of the brain —
looking at many areas of the spectrum to get a different picture. [6]
In an article aptly entitled “Decoding Minds”, Sharon Berry describes
one of the experiments conducted by the Lockheed Martin team.
Simple interaction with subjects has been used to test the system.
A researcher shows a picture to a person or asks a person to think
of a number between one and nine. Information is gathered and
displayed on a monitor much like on a television. It shows that
the person is thinking about the number nine. The researcher then
tells the person to say the same number, an action that appears in
another part of the brain, the parietal region. [6]
Norseen explains in the article that
By looking at the collective data, we know that when this person
thinks of the number nine or says the number nine, this is how
it appears in the brain, providing a fingerprint, or what we call a
brainprint.
9
Also known as bio-fusion.
