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Robot Interprets, Plays Back Dreams

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Mon Feb 18, 2008 01:18 PM
from the ceiling-robot-is-watching-you-dream dept.
Robotics Science
foobarx writes "Digital artists have created a humanoid robot which uses brainwave activity recorded during sleep to playback an interpretation of your dreams. The artists, Brendan Burns and Fernando Orellana used machine learning to find patterns in the brainwaves and then matched these patterns to dreams which they remembered having. Others have noted the possible hazards of this new technology."
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Submission: Robot interprets, plays back dreams by foobarx (1134525)
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  • Just Imagine.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by ZonkerWilliam (953437) * on Monday February 18 2008, @01:19PM (#22465536) Journal
    This could be embarrassing if it reenacts my wet dreams of Eva Longoria...Ummm my wife I mean, ya my wife!
    • I watched the robot video and if it were me, that robot would be humping its hips making the energizer bunny look like a slackard!

    • Re:Just Imagine.... (Score:5, Funny)

      by garett_spencley (193892) on Monday February 18 2008, @01:30PM (#22465676) Journal
      I have wet dreams about your wife. Does that count ?

      Just trying to help get you out of trouble.

    • Re:Just Imagine.... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 18 2008, @01:31PM (#22465692)
      Her seeing your dreams would be embarrassing, but you'll feel even more embarrassed (and inadequate) when you see her dreams.

      • Re:Just Imagine.... (Score:5, Funny)

        by hal2814 (725639) on Monday February 18 2008, @03:55PM (#22467488)
        Reminds me of a joke:

        A man and his wife just married and were going into their new home. The man was carrying his wife over the threshold and said to her, "Honey, did you ever in your wildest dreams think I'd be carrying you over the threshold into a big new beautiful home?"

        The wife responded, "I hate to break this to you, but you're not in my wildest dreams."

  • Others have noted the possible hazards of this new technology.


    Ya mean, like mind control?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by KublaiKhan (522918)
      How exactly would you propose to turn a machine that acts out measured impulses into a mind control device?

      It's nothing more than a sophisticated puppet; is it likely that the puppeteer of a Punch and Judy show will start feeding people to crocodiles and bashing folks over the head with a policeman's truncheon?

      • Re:You mean . . . .? (Score:5, Funny)

        by somersault (912633) on Monday February 18 2008, @02:53PM (#22466746) Homepage Journal

        How exactly would you propose to turn a machine that acts out measured impulses into a mind control device?


        Put the batteries in the other way round.. I mean duh, it isn't exactly brain surgery.

        • Re:You mean . . . .? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by KublaiKhan (522918) on Monday February 18 2008, @01:47PM (#22465902) Homepage Journal
          No two-way communication is occurring.

          The robot--if such a word is even really appropriate--has only read access. There is no input from the device to the brain--there are only sensors reading the electrical and motor impulses. There's no "determination" of where the impulses are--there are merely changes recorded by sensors which the operator places on the head that passively read the electric fields.

          The device does not in any way, shape, or form 'write' to the brain at all.

          This is nowhere near a 'mind meld'--if anything, it's like a video camera that records electrical activity rather than visual spectrum activity.

          No Matrix bots for you. Sorry. You'll have to wait a while before you can meet Agent Smith.
        • No, the device does not communicate with the brain. The device simply measures brain waves, it does not need to find them. They are in the brain. I know, that is hard to find in some people...
    • Less mind control, more evidence of past crimes. Imagine if the government got to hook up a dream machine to see if you dreamed about committing that unsolved crime.

      It's an interesting 5th Amendment argument that your dreams would be giving testimony against yourself. Our technology is SO far beyond what the Founding Fathers could ever dream of that we're in uncharted waters.

      • Re: You mean . . . .? (Score:4, Funny)

        by arizwebfoot (1228544) on Monday February 18 2008, @01:37PM (#22465778)
        And what if there is music involved?

        Is the RIAA gonna sue you for infringement?

      • Re:You mean . . . .? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Haeleth (414428) on Monday February 18 2008, @01:46PM (#22465884) Journal

        It's an interesting 5th Amendment argument that your dreams would be giving testimony against yourself. Our technology is SO far beyond what the Founding Fathers could ever dream of that we're in uncharted waters.
        Um, our science fiction might be. Our technology is nowhere close to making it possible to get any detailed information at all out of your dreams. (The robot described in this article merely looks at brain activity and "creatively" translates that into "the kinds of things people do in dreams". It's totally non-specific, and its accuracy is really rather questionable as well.)

      • It's an interesting 5th Amendment argument that your dreams would be giving testimony against yourself.

        Not really an argument. You have the 5th amendment right to prevent the government from compelling anything from you, be it speech or DNA or, in some rare instances, fingerprints. You just need to know to stand up for that right.

        Don't want to tell the police officer you were speeding? Just don't answer. ("Do you know how fast you were going?" "yes")

        Don't want to take that breathalyzer? Forfeit your license and you're fine.

        Don't want to sign that statement the police put in front of you? Don't. (Just

        • Re:You mean . . . .? (Score:5, Informative)

          by davetd02 (212006) on Monday February 18 2008, @02:26PM (#22466396)
          Except none of that is true. It'd be nice for defendants if it were, but the privilege against self-incrimination does not apply to physical evidence. The Supreme Court has never held there to be a self-incrimination right against giving PHYSICAL evidence -- just to forced TESTIMONY (getting up on the stand and actually describing what happened).

          The 5th Amendment does NOT stop the police from forcing you to participate in a lineup.

          The 5th Amendment does NOT stop the police from requesting a handwriting sample or a fingerprint.

          The 5th Amendment does NOT stop the police from requesting a voice sample.

          See, eg here [reason.com] ("It is long settled law that fingerprinting does not violate the Fifth Amendment's guarantee against compelled self-incrimination or the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures. Indeed, much non-testimonial evidence does not fall under those constitutional protections, including the analysis of blood and breath for alcohol. Samples of semen, hair, and other tissues may be taken without a suspect's consent.").

          See also Schember v. California, where the Supreme Court reiterated that the 5th Amendment protects against compelled testimony primarily in the spoken word sense. Blood tests weren't compelled "testimony," even if they were "compelled" in the sense that they were forcible, over protests.

          We can write laws that prohibit forced fingerprints, or forced handwriting samples -- call your Congressperson and tell them to do so if that's what you believe. But there's no right in the Constitution about that.

    • Re:You mean . . . .? (Score:5, Funny)

      by STrinity (723872) on Monday February 18 2008, @02:01PM (#22466116) Homepage
      Worse than that:

      FRY: So you're telling me they broadcast commercials into people's dreams?

      LEELA: Of course.

      FRY: But, how is that possible?

      PROFESSOR FARNSWORTH: It's very simple. The ad gets into your brain just like this liquid gets into this egg.

              [He shows an egg and injects it with liquid from a syringe until the egg explodes.]

      PROFESSOR FARNSWORTH: Although, in reality, it's not liquid, but gamma radiation.

      LEELA: Didn't you have ads in the twentieth century?

      FRY: Well, sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio... and in magazines... and movies, and at ballgames, and on buses, and milk cartons, and T-shirts, and bananas, and written in the sky. But not in dreams, no sirree.

  • From the hazards... (Score:5, Funny)

    by snl2587 (1177409) on Monday February 18 2008, @01:23PM (#22465588)

    Sleep Waking Dream Enacting Robot Will Get You Dumped, Fired, Arrested, Punched in the Wiener

    Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'll pass on this one...

  • Interesting to me because I know 1 of the artists (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tpjunkie (911544) on Monday February 18 2008, @01:27PM (#22465622) Journal
    Fernando Orellana was my professor for a digital art class I took in college. He was way into the computer as a tool for creating artwork, and the fusion of traditional art with the modern and bleeding edge digital techniques. Interestingly, he asked the class one day what each of us would do with an unlimited budget for an art project. No one thought to ask him what he would do but it looks like this is certainly a hint. He's a great guy and has some cool ideas, I'll have to look him up when I'm at school for alumni weekend this year.
  • How long until an Augmentor appears?

  • Raises the question.. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by wellingtonsteve (892855) <wellingtonsteve@ ... minus physicist> on Monday February 18 2008, @01:29PM (#22465660)
    of whether you are responsible for what your robot does while re-enacting your dreams...
    • It is fine to have dreams/feelings of anger/lust etc. It is not always fine to act on them (assault/murder/rape etc)..

      Just using a machine to carry out your dirty work does not let you off the hook.

    • "Digital artists have created a humanoid robot which uses brainwave activity recorded during sleep to playback an interpretation of your dreams.

      I don't think they'd actually allow the robot a chance to do anything illegal or otherwise harmful. but if they for whatever reason allowed this and the robot did do something illegal [strangled your boss for example] what evidence could be brought forward that you did or did not intend for it to happen, after all it was in your dreams or was it? what if the rob

      • something tells me a hairless furby with basic dream interpretation ability isn't going to be getting too many people in legal trouble anytime soon.
      • The phenomenon you're talking about is called "lucid dreaming". The methods to train oneself to do it seem to center around habituating oneself to questioning one's state of consciousness and doing reality checks, such as reading a piece of text twice to see if it stays the same. Apparently after enough repetition you'll start doing this in your dreams, too, and when the results don't add up, you'll realize you're dreaming.Or so they say.

        I've had a few lucid dreams myself, but never consciously. I find th
  • ...at least according to an earlier slashdot article. In a lot of dreams you're simply dealing with uncomfortable situations. It seems like a pretty useless thing to interpret dreams. They are only relevant to the given person anyway and totally useless for a third party, because no conclusions should be drawn on them.

  • A speculation machine? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TripMaster Monkey (862126) on Monday February 18 2008, @01:30PM (#22465672)
    From TFA (emphasis mine):

    Periods of high activity (REM) where associated with dynamic behaviors (flying, scared, etc.) and low activity with more subtle ones (gesturing, looking around, etc.). The "behaviors" the robot demonstrates are some of the actions I might do (along with everyone else) in a dream.

    "Might" do? So, if I'm experiencing high-activity REM, I might be flying...or I might be scared? There's a big difference between those two activities (well, alt least there is for me).

    It sounds like Fernando Orellana and Brendan Burns have created a robot whose function is to speculate wildly on what someone might have been dreaming.

    Big deal. I can do that right now, and I can do it for free.

    • Re:A speculation machine? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ShatteredArm (1123533) on Monday February 18 2008, @01:41PM (#22465830)
      It seems more like it's a meaningless representation of brain waves (or whatever) using physical actions of a robot. Until they think of a way to make the robot actually do what I'm dreaming about doing, it's not any kind of interpretation at all. It seems kinda like making a robot that interprets FM waves by dancing a little bit faster when the frequency is higher.
    • Forget that. If you've read the latest research on dreaming, this robot can't even tell if you are dream or not, as sometimes during REM people aren't even dreaming. This is about as wildly, ridiculously inaccurate as possible.

  • But honey... (Score:5, Funny)

    by helpfulcorn (668048) on Monday February 18 2008, @01:32PM (#22465702) Homepage Journal
    I swear to god, I don't think your sister is more beautiful, it was just a dream.

  • Doesn't so much interpret dreams... (Score:4, Informative)

    by bkaul (1235970) on Monday February 18 2008, @01:37PM (#22465774)
    ... it moves its head based on eye movements, and dances around based on EEG data. There's no actual interpretation of the content of the dream, other than that more active EEG and REM periods correspond to more activity from the robot. It wouldn't know if you were dreaming about flying, or about Eva Longoria, or about going for a jog.

  • If I dream in Code (Score:5, Funny)

    by AuntieWillow (1188799) on Monday February 18 2008, @01:46PM (#22465876) Journal
    can the robot do my work for me?

  • Philp K. Dick wants to know.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SethJohnson (112166) on Monday February 18 2008, @01:49PM (#22465924) Homepage Journal


    Yeah, robots reading human dreams, but whoop. Wake me up when we can read robot dreams. When we find out if they dream of electric sheep, then you'll have something.

    Seth

  • Oblig: (Score:5, Funny)

    by ArcherB (796902) * on Monday February 18 2008, @01:51PM (#22465960) Journal
    Bender: [murmuring in his sleep] Kill all humans, kill all humans, must kill all...
    Fry: Bender, wake up!
    Bender: I was having the most wonderful dream. I think you were in it.

  • The $500 mystic... future /. meme? (Score:3, Funny)

    by zappepcs (820751) on Monday February 18 2008, @01:57PM (#22466038) Journal
    A novel idea (I think) to record brainwaves and try to match them against recordings of known dreams.

    We can all think of things that 'might' go wrong, or that could be misused, but aside from that I can see a whole lot of 'my dream robot/interpreter/$500 mystic told me
    - I should not date you anymore
    - rice-a-roni causes cancer
    - my dog/cat saw your children playing doctor/nurses
    - President Bush is a reptile

    Yes, I can forsee some crazy shit coming out of this technology
  • The ship is sailing merrily along, when the sailors rescue a man floating on a piece of driftwood. He tells them he's fleeing an island where dreams come true. The sailors want to set a course for this island immediately. "Not daydreams," he tells them, "real dreams!"

    The sailors quickly decide they don't want to go there after all.
  • We may not know if androids dream of electric sheep but thanks to this robot, we'll know if you do! Perv.
  • Get out of my head!
  • Of course, the robot malfunctions if you happen to be dreaming of electric sheep. It can't interpret the signal.
  • It interpreted my dreams well enough, but in them my sheep weren't electric.

  • Robot 'plays back' dreams (Score:3, Funny)

    by The Redster! (874352) on Monday February 18 2008, @02:28PM (#22466420)
    In a lesser-published trial, the robot was recorded fishing out a credit card, leaving the lab, and running off to the mall to buy a pair of Lightspeed Briefs.

  • "Dream Man" Not A Threat, Says Roboticist (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jesus_666 (702802) on Monday February 18 2008, @04:36PM (#22467886)
    World reknowned roboticist Dr. Thomas Light of Light Labs, Inc. has announced today that this dream-reenacting robot, commonly known as "Dream Man", is not a threat to the safety of the free world. "Dream Man", so Light, "is one of [Dr.] Albert [Wily]'s more stupid creations. He fits right in with Plant Man and Charge Man."
    "Reverse engineering Dream Man's weapon is definitely something I look forward to. Albert's stupid ideas never fail to crack me up", added Light.

    Light also announced that he will be sending the autonomous weapon of mass destruction codenamed "Mega Man" to destroy Dream Man along with seven other so called "Robot Masters", which form the latest iteration in the ongoing Light/Wily feud that has been waged since Wily's theft of several robot prototypes from Light Labs in 199X.

    The United Nations Security Council has announced that it fully supports Light, even though like usual it has no idea about what's actually going on or why the world is supposed to be in danger. They do, however, support anyone who stands up to would-be world dominators, especially ones they perceive as zany.

    Meanwhile, Light has drawn considerable criticism over discarding the weapon data from the last encounter with Wily's Robot Masters. During the conflicts, Light reverse-engineers the weapons used by the Robot Masters in order to provide Mega Man with additional firepower. However, as soon as Wily is defeated, the new weapons are summarily discarded in what Light's detractors see as a display of shortsightedness.

    "Seriously", so Japanese Minister of Defense Shigeru Ishiba, "even though Dream Man doesn't look very threatening, he might prove difficult to defeat with just a puny plasma cannon. A few Crash bombs or a burst of Atomic Fire would probably do him in easily, but as Light insists on throwing away perfectly good weapon data Rockman [as the Japanese call Mega Man] is going to have a bit of a fight ahead of him."

    Ishiba added that Japan would be happy to provide cover fire or E-tanks if needed.

  • So wrong it's out the other side (Score:3, Informative)

    by DynaSoar (714234) on Monday February 18 2008, @11:33PM (#22471386) Journal
    The headline and summary are almost worse than TFA in terms of being misleading junk. Almost.

    TFA: > Using an algorithm, the creators discovered a set of brainwave patterns, to each pattern a pre-programmed behavior was assigned.

    They *assigned* a pre-programmed behavior to an EEG pattern. The programmed behavior has nothing to do with what was actually going on in the mind.

    They seem to entirely skip over the fact that EEG patterns can be identical to the point of high statistical significance and be cause by extremely different stimuli.

    "Using an algorithm".... well, that makes it all scientifical and everything, so that's OK then. What a verbal turd.
    • Actually, I was wondering if we could hook it up to another robot and finally answer the question, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"

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