Robot Interprets, Plays Back Dreams

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."

Comments

Re:You mean . . . .?

[KublaiKhan]

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:A speculation machine?

[ShatteredArm]

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.

Re:You mean . . . .?

[Haeleth]

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.)

Re:You mean . . . .?

[KublaiKhan]

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.