The most advanced robots in
the very fine movie I, Robot had the ability to interpret the emotions of
the human beings around them. They did it by analyzing the stress patterns in
the voices they heard. In phrasing it just that way, the film pays homage to an
earlier computer who did just the same thing - the HAL-9000 computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey
.
Today, Affective Media Limited in Scotland is working
to help computers better understand people in various stages of emotional
stress. Affective Media even has an online demo with an animated character named
Tetchy the Turtle, who accepts voice samples and analyzes them.
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Tetchy, a touchy turtle who responds to emotion.
Affective Media
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Once you have given Tetchy a four-second voice
sample, it works on processing your sample. Eventually, the turtle begins to
imitate your emotions, feeding them back to you.
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That fine line between cute and annoying.
Affective Media
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Dr Christian Jones, the chief executive of Affective
Media, puts it this way:
"When you are depressed or sad, the pitch
of your voice drops and your speech slows down. When you are angry, the pitch
rises and the volume of your voice goes up. We betray our emotions as we talk
in dozens of subtle ways. Our recognition system uses 40 of these. It ignores
the words you use, and concentrates exclusively on the sound quality of
speech. It can tell your emotional state the very first time it hears your
voice."
Affective Media is planning for a future in which it
will be important that machines are able to understand the different states of
their human colleagues. "Soon we will talk to our cars. We will give them voice
commands to turn on CD players, heaters and fans," said Jones. "Using emotion
recognition, those commands would also show if we are angry, frustrated, or
sleepy."
HAL-9000 was sophisticated enough to run all of the
mechanical systems of a space ship. HAL was also able to tell whether or not the
human astronauts were up to the task of making decisions. Here is the famous
exchange between Dave Bowman and the HAL-9000 (as found in the novel) that may
presage the future of human-computer interaction:
"Hal, switch to manual hibernation control."
"I can tell from your voice harmonics, Dave, that
you're badly upset. Why don't you take a stress pill and get some rest?"
"Hal, I am in command of this ship. I order you to
release the manual hibernation control."
"I'm sorry, Dave, but in accordance with special
subroutine C1435-dash-4, quote, When the crew are dead or incapacitated, the
onboard computer must assume control, unquote. I must, therefore, overrule
your authority, since you are not in any condition to exercise it
intelligently."
"Hal," said Bowman, now speaking with an icy calm.
"I am not incapacitated. Unless you obey my instructions, I shall be forced to
disconnect you." (Read more about HAL-9000.)
Just as Tetchy the Turtle is being designed to show
emotion, science fiction robots have been written that way for years. Read about
Marvin the depressed robot
from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. And you may also appreciate the
comments of the robot cab driver from Philip K. Dick's
classic short story A Present for Pat from 1952. Read more about
Affective Media at Mind what you say - this robot will know
how you feel.
(This Science Fiction in the News story used
with permission from Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction.)
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