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AI Science Technology

Researchers Develop Device That Can 'Hear' Your Internal Voice (theguardian.com) 108

Posted by msmash from the moving-forward dept.
Researchers have created a wearable device that can read people's minds when they use an internal voice, allowing them to control devices and ask queries without speaking. From a report: The device, called AlterEgo, can transcribe words that wearers verbalise internally but do not say out loud, using electrodes attached to the skin. "Our idea was: could we have a computing platform that's more internal, that melds human and machine in some ways and that feels like an internal extension of our own cognition?" said Arnav Kapur, who led the development of the system at MIT's Media Lab.

Kapur describes the headset as an "intelligence-augmentation" or IA device, and was presented at the Association for Computing Machinery's Intelligent User Interface conference in Tokyo. It is worn around the jaw and chin, clipped over the top of the ear to hold it in place. Four electrodes under the white plastic device make contact with the skin and pick up the subtle neuromuscular signals that are triggered when a person verbalises internally. When someone says words inside their head, artificial intelligence within the device can match particular signals to particular words, feeding them into a computer.
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Researchers Develop Device That Can 'Hear' Your Internal Voice More

Researchers Develop Device That Can 'Hear' Your Internal Voice

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  • That should be useful for interoogation purposes. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by PsychoSlashDot ( 207849 ) on Friday April 06, 2018 @03:48PM (#56394837)
    "Don't think of the pink elephant. Don't think of the pink elephant."

    Damn. Thought of the pink elephant. Now they know.

    • "Don't think about screwing my buddy's wife."

      Damn.

    • Yeah, mod you all the way up, first thing that occurred to me. This will be used by law enforcement, and there will be Supreme Court challenges to it's use, as it would violate someone's 5th Amendment rights, I believe. Of course all of this is assuming the device actually works as advertised, with accuracy, and isn't just a bunch of overhyped or fake tech.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mark-t ( 151149 )
        Even if it works as described, it seems like it's still useless if a person thinks in terms of pictures or general concepts and not words.
        • But how many people can discipline their thoughts that way, especially if they're being interrogated relentlessly for hours?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by mark-t ( 151149 )

            I'm suggesting that some people, myself for example, don't think in words at all. The only time I think in words is when I explicitly am thinking about what to say or to write, or I make the deliberate and conscious choice to try and do so. In general, I think in terms of wordless images, or general ideas... until I try and communicate whatever it is that I am thinking about to another person. If I'm not trying to communicate it, no words need necessarily exist... words are tools only needed for lingu

  • Mister Gant... (Score:5, Funny)

    by TigerPlish ( 174064 ) on Friday April 06, 2018 @03:49PM (#56394841)

    ..you must think in Russian.

    Think Russian.

    *whooooosh*

  • NOT mind-reading... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    For folks wondering, this is more the realm of sub-vocal utterances. It isn't mind-reading, and reading too much into it is likely a mistake outside of niche human behavior research.

    You'd get the same result running a few filters on a mini-microphone stuck in your throat. At best, you're going to hear mumbling, perhaps some hyper-crude renditions of a song someone is thinking of, lots of hmms.

    As far as biometric time wasters go, seems OK - but this is basically one step below (yes, below) random polygraph

  • More fake "innovation" from the MIT Media Lab. When have they actually produced something that might be useful? And I call baloney on the ability to identify non-verbalized words. Complete BS.

    • And I call baloney on the ability to identify non-verbalized words.

      Well . . . that's what you say . . . but what are you really thinking . . .?

      Let's just strap our Interrogation Assistant onto your head to find out . . .

      • And I call baloney on the ability to identify non-verbalized words.

        I expect it would either not work at all, or work far too well, with someone suffering Tourette's.

        • Nope, Tourette's -- a person says (usually rude) things they are _not_ thinking. Terrible affliction.

    • Looking at their wikipedia page, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org], I see a fair amount of stuff that's gone to market.

      Some Media Lab-developed technologies made it into products or public software packages, such as the Lego Mindstorms, LEGO WeDo and the pointing stick in IBM laptop keyboards[citation needed], the Benton hologram used in most credit cards, the Fisher-Price's Symphony Painter,[22] the Nortel Wireless Mesh Network,[23] the NTT Comware Sensetable,[24] the Taito’s Karaoke-on-Demand Machine.[25] A 1994 device called the Sensor Chair used to control a musical orchestra was adapted by several car manufacturers into capacitive sensors to prevent dangerous airbag deployments.[26][27]

      It is a research facility so I actually expect that most of their research won't pan out directly into a product. This may not actually be very useful as a computer input interface but it might help in other ways like being able to better diagnose Autism, ADHD, schizophrenia or other mental disorders in people.

    • More fake "innovation" from the MIT Media Lab. When have they actually produced something that might be useful? And I call baloney on the ability to identify non-verbalized words. Complete BS.

      I beg to differ, the MIT Media Lab isn't the first do achieve this, it has been done before, and with great success: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    • Not only that, but I dare anyone to suggest a potential beneficial use of such a technology. The only thing such a device would ever be used for would be a state of oppression that humanity has never encountered before. AI is going to be bad enough as it is.

      Even IF it wasn't monopolized by governments to enslave the world (and that's a huge fucking if), I'm not so sure a world where everyone can read anyone else's mind is one I particularly care to live in.

      Y'all can go be ants somewhere the fuck else.

  • My mind seems to be so scattered that I don't know if I'd be able to use this accurately. I can't even tell how many posts I've written then deleted because something else came to mind.

    Where I think this could be really cool though is transcribing dreams. It seems most days I can remember a portion of a dream, but never the entire thing. I think it would be neat to look and see what I was dreaming about.

  • It's a pity Stephen Hawking is no longer with us. This would undoubtably speed up the rate at which he could communicate.

  • Whoa. Did I just say that out loud? (Score:4, Funny)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Friday April 06, 2018 @04:07PM (#56394953)

    ... headset ... is worn around the jaw and chin, clipped over the top of the ear to hold it in place.
    Four electrodes under the white plastic device make contact with the skin ...

    Try getting through airport security wearing that and after it verbalizes your thoughts to the TSA agents.

  • Predicted by David Brin in "Earth" in 1990 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Paul Johnson ( 33553 ) on Friday April 06, 2018 @04:09PM (#56394963) Homepage
    The science fiction book "Earth" by David Brin predicted exactly this back in 1990. Brin imagined a clip-on device that would interpret subvocalised words by measuring muscle movements in the chin and throat, exactly like this. He called it the "subvocal". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    • The science fiction book "Earth" by David Brin predicted exactly this back in 1990.

      Orson Scott Card beat him with the earring to talk to Jane in Ender's Game in '85.

  • Yeah! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    If my thought-dreams could be seen they'd probably put my head in a guillotine.

  • Subvocal recognition? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocal_recognition

  • The article has a professor talking about the potential military applications for communications. The thing is, subvocal microphones (attached right above the larynx) and bone conduction microphones already solve that problem with the military. And it also solves the problems that they are trying to solve of "secret communications with my device." Also, it looks significantly less stupid.

  • Which voice? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by guruevi ( 827432 ) on Friday April 06, 2018 @04:25PM (#56395071)

    I have between 2 and 6 voices going on internally simultaneously, typically when I'm multitasking or mulling over a difficult problem, the voice keeps going on in the background (quite literally as if you're in a shared office) and occasionally interrupts the current primary conversation. I also have conversations with myself in my head and they have different voices.

    • Woah, you might want to get that checked out!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by guruevi ( 827432 )

        It's quite normal I'm told as long as they aren't interrupting your life and they are your voices. The problem would be when you hear voices that you don't identify as your own.

        • Yeah, I know, I talk to myself too, sometimes out loud. Of course, there is a question as to whether I'm actually "normal"!

  • Guess it's working perfectly

  • Come on Cambridge analytica, we spot you. Don't think you got us fooled for a minute.
  • Although I can think in words when I explicitly want to, I find that the most accurate way to describe how I normally think is in terms of either images or else general concepts that I have an intuitive understanding of or at least the ability to imagine.

    • I think this is the point. To use this device, you would have to consciously think in words. It wouldn't be able to pick up on the other stuff. This (might) allow you to control what the device picks up.

  • Does everyone have an inner voice? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Jason1729 ( 561790 ) on Friday April 06, 2018 @05:09PM (#56395219)
    Robert J. Sawyer in his book Quantum Night mentioned this sort of idea.

    He suggested that Philosophical Zombies [wikipedia.org] would not have an inner voice, they in reality go through the motions of every day life without actually carrying on an inner monologue and they just fake it to fit in. He gives a lot of examples of strange human behaviour that are explained by the idea. For example mob mentality if many people are running a simple "just fit in" script in their brains instead of a real train of sapient thought.

    No matter what, if this device really works, we are going to learn a lot more about human consciousness from it over the next decade.

    • Except some of us don't always think in words. We think in pictures & diagrams coupled with movements. Of course we think in words too. But that mode of thought is often too slow. An easy example would be solving a Rubix cube. Thinking in words would cripple the process.

      I think most people think like this at different times. I find thinking in words useful when communicating or when solidifying/defining something in my head. But if I try to go through the day while thinking in words, my next sent

  • Can someone who's read the article please tell me if we're talking about some kind of mindreading horseshit or subvocalization?

    It's Friday and I've been drinking since 11am and I really can't be bothered to click the link.

    • It appears to be some sort of subvocal recognition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] has a bit about the subject, but with no citations to the research.

      • Thanks. Some time ago, I worked on a project that used subvocalization to create formants and envelopes to synthesize spoken (and sung) words. I was working on the synthesis part and not the subvocalization part, which I still don't quite understand. I didn't see what happened to the project because I moved on to something else.

  • Can you say "thoughtcrime?"

  • Distopian Vision (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    This is just the exact type of AI that should not be developed. Do we really want anyone, let alone the government, be able to immobilize us somehow strap this on us and either use it as a lie detector or to read thoughts that we have never tried to NOT subvocalize. In fact the real market may be in courses that teach you to not think in words at all!

  • https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]

    In 2002, the Japanese company NTT DoCoMo announced it had created a silent mobile phone using electromyography and imaging of lip movement. "The spur to developing such a phone," ...

  • Does anyone have any doubts that this will instantly be used by law enforcement and your government?

    I didn't think so.

  • "That dress makes your ass look big"

  • AUGH! Learn to type as**ole!
    Take it easy. Ok. Never mind. Rented fingers.
    Does the JOIN get fully analyzed before the WHERE?
    I will never effing understand this elliptic curve s**t
    Man I really have to poop now
    Check slashdot first. What's the stock market doing
    Tweet this trump. I knew I shoulda bought amazon.
    Fricking Microsoft! How could you NOT implement shortcircuit IF?
    "Not in HTML5". Great.
    Supersix EVO. oh yea baby. 64 cm ought to do it. Man that bitch is 'spensive.
    Crap. Is it Len() or

  • Researchers have created a wearable device that can read people's jaw movements.

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