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Premotor Cortex Research
In the early 1900s, researches studied the premotor cortex of monkeys and observed that actions and observation trigger the same neurons. This was a significant find for researchers to help them continue developing technology that mirrors human psychology. -
Publishing of "Affective Computing"
Rosalind Picard published her book "Affective Computing" that outlined her research that she collected on artificial intelligence and computer science. She believes that in order for computers to be genuinely intelligent, they must be made to mirror human abilities.
Through this book, people were exposed to the idea of artificial intelligence and was a significant step to making computers genuinely intelligent. https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/affective-computing -
Clippy's Retirement
Microsoft designed a tool name "Clippy" for users to help the navigate software. This quickly began to annoy users as it was interrupting what they were doing. According to an article by Joshua Krisch, Clippy was retired simply because humans feel inferior when they depend on others and it is important for them to help us without us feeling powerless. A tool needs to help us in a way that does not trigger our emotions.
https://www.vocativ.com/319986/clippy-digital-assistant/index.html -
iCalm
iCalm wrsitband was devloped to monitor sleep, stress, and weightloss by tracking your heartbeat and physcial activity. We see that this idea is being expanded today with products such as a FitBit and an apple watch. An apple watch will tell you to do things like walk around or breath. -
Affectiva
Affectiva was founded in 2009 and grew out of MIT's media lab. They have created technology that recognizing human emotions by reading facial cues and physiological responses. Their technology has been used in political polling, marketing messages and advertising. -
EPU
EPU, or Emotion Processing Unit was designed to detect human emotion and reflect that information in its behavior. EPU's are used in robots, AI and consumer electronic devices. This development has allowed other researchers to use this in further devices. -
Future
In 10 years, I think that the use of self driving cars will be the new "norm." We will rely on a device to drive us places while we sit in it as if its our "uber"In the next 30 years, our phones will began to act like us. I think that emotion process units will be used in our phones to act as if they are a human. They will be able to read our facial expression to relay information to us. I am not exactly sure how this will work, but I believe that it will be able to make our lives easier.
