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Baby Meets Big Brother For Science

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the all-about-learning dept.

dylanduck writes "A baby is to be monitored by a network of microphones and video cameras for 14 hours a day, 365 days a year, in an effort to unravel the seemingly miraculous process by which children acquire language. I guess that's what happens when your pop works at MIT's Media Lab. Thankfully his parents can switch off the surveillance for 'private' moments and delete short scenes. All the footage is being classified by algorithms."

4 of 188 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Who cares about the privacy of an infant? by jerkmonster · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The point is that, though the infant may not be able to "say" anything in its defense, the kid or adult that eventually emerges from said infant may feel weird about its early childhood having been exposed to the world. A society's supposed to take care of those who can't take care of themselves, not take advantage of them.

  2. Iterative refinement by hey · · Score: 2, Insightful

    First baby thows out an early prototype. eg "Ga-ga". This is praised
    however some constructive critism by the clients (parents) is offered - eg "Da-da". Baby then adapts the first prototype and re-demos it for the users and clients. And so on.

    By the time version 3 (years) is reached baby is still in the iterative refinement design and development mode. For example: "I eated dinner". The user-clients offer "I ate dinner" as a correction that is a new feature in version 3.5.

  3. Re:Who cares about the privacy of an infant? by bunions · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The kid or adult that eventually emerges from said infant may feel weird about pretty much any choice the parents make for him/her. Also, "being released to the world" makes it sound like they're showing it on Fox. It's not even clear to me from the article that humans will watch significant chunks of it.

    I can see how this argument can be made for a 3 or 5 year-old, since they are starting to have personality and make their own choices. But simply observing infants is pretty much all the same - they sleep, poop and eat.
    What's to be embarassed about? "Oh no, the world now knows I was an infant at some point in time and could not control my bowels, I am mortified!"

    I'm not really sure how this is 'taking advantage' of the baby, because I don't see how it harms him/her.

    --
    there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
  4. Re:Footage Classifications by OctoberSky · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I thought Pick a Boob fell under the 18% for eating?