Technology that knows what youre feeling Poppy Crum
What happens when technology
knows more about us than we do?
A computer now can detect
our slightest facial microexpressions
and be able to tell the difference
between a real smile and a fake one.
That’s only the beginning.
Technology has become
incredibly intelligent
and already knows a lot
about our internal states.
And whether we like it or not,
we already are sharing
parts of our inner lives
that’s out of our control.
That seems like a problem,
because a lot of us like to keep
what’s going on inside
from what people actually see.
We want to have agency
over what we share and what we don’t.
We all like to have a poker face.
But I’m here to tell you
that I think that’s a thing of the past.
And while that might sound scary,
it’s not necessarily a bad thing.
I’ve spent a lot of time
studying the circuits in the brain
that create the unique perceptual
realities that we each have.
And now I bring that together
with the capabilities
of current technology
to create new technology
that does make us better,
feel more, connect more.
And I believe to do that,
we have to be OK
losing some of our agency.
With some animals, it’s really amazing,
and we get to see into
their internal experiences.
We get this upfront look
at the mechanistic interaction
between how they respond
to the world around them
and the state of their biological systems.
This is where evolutionary pressures
like eating, mating
and making sure we don’t get eaten
drive deterministic behavioral responses
to information in the world.
And we get to see into this window,
into their internal states
and their biological experiences.
It’s really pretty cool.
Now, stay with me for a moment –
I’m a violinist, not a singer.
But the spider’s already
given me a critical review.
(Video) (Singing in a low pitch)
(Singing in a middle pitch)
(Singing in a high pitch)
(Singing in a low pitch)
(Singing in a middle pitch)
(Singing in a high pitch)
(Laughter)
Poppy Crum: It turns out, some spiders
tune their webs like violins
to resonate with certain sounds.
And likely, the harmonics
of my voice as it went higher
coupled with how loud I was singing
recreated either the predatory call
of an echolocating bat or a bird,
and the spider did what it should.
It predictively told me to bug off.
I love this.
The spider’s responding
to its external world
in a way that we get to see and know
what’s happening to its internal world.
Biology is controlling
the spider’s response;
it’s wearing its internal
state on its sleeve.
But us, humans –
we’re different.
We like to think we have cognitive control
over what people see, know and understand
about our internal states –
our emotions, our insecurities,
our bluffs, our trials and tribulations –
and how we respond.
We get to have our poker face.
Or maybe we don’t.
Try this with me.
Your eye responds
to how hard your brain is working.
The response you’re about to see
is driven entirely by mental effort
and has nothing to do
with changes in lighting.
We know this from neuroscience.
I promise, your eyes are doing
the same thing as the subject in our lab,
whether you want them to or not.
At first, you’ll hear some voices.
Try and understand them
and keep watching the eye in front of you.
It’s going to be hard at first,
one should drop out,
and it should get really easy.
You’re going to see the change in effort
in the diameter of the pupil.
(Video) (Two overlapping voices talking)
(Single voice) Intelligent technology
depends on personal data.
(Two overlapping voices talking)
(Single voice) Intelligent technology
depends on personal data.
PC: Your pupil doesn’t lie.
Your eye gives away your poker face.
When your brain’s having to work harder,
your autonomic nervous system
drives your pupil to dilate.
When it’s not, it contracts.
When I take away one of the voices,
the cognitive effort
to understand the talkers
gets a lot easier.
I could have put the two voices
in different spatial locations,
I could have made one louder.
You would have seen the same thing.
We might think we have more agency
over the reveal of our internal state
than that spider,
but maybe we don’t.
Today’s technology is starting
to make it really easy
to see the signals and tells
that give us away.
The amalgamation of sensors
paired with machine learning
on us, around us and in our environments,
is a lot more than cameras and microphones
tracking our external actions.
Our bodies radiate our stories
from changes in the temperature
of our physiology.
We can look at these
as infrared thermal images
showing up behind me,
where reds are hotter
and blues are cooler.
The dynamic signature
of our thermal response
gives away our changes in stress,
how hard our brain is working,
whether we’re paying attention
and engaged in the conversation
we might be having
and even whether we’re experiencing
a picture of fire as if it were real.
We can actually see
people give off heat on their cheeks
in response to an image of flame.
But aside from giving away
our poker bluffs,
what if dimensions of data
from someone’s thermal response
gave away a glow
of interpersonal interest?
Tracking the honesty of feelings
in someone’s thermal image
might be a new part of how
we fall in love and see attraction.
Our technology can listen,
develop insights and make predictions
about our mental and physical health
just by analyzing the timing dynamics
of our speech and language
picked up by microphones.
Groups have shown that changes
in the statistics of our language
paired with machine learning
can predict the likelihood
someone will develop psychosis.
I’m going to take it a step further
and look at linguistic changes
and changes in our voice
that show up with a lot
of different conditions.
Dementia, diabetes can alter
the spectral coloration of our voice.
Changes in our language
associated with Alzheimer’s
can sometimes show up more
than 10 years before clinical diagnosis.
What we say and how we say it
tells a much richer story
than we used to think.
And devices we already have in our homes
could, if we let them,
give us invaluable insight back.
The chemical composition of our breath
gives away our feelings.
There’s a dynamic mixture of acetone,
isoprene and carbon dioxide
that changes when our heart speeds up,
when our muscles tense,
and all without any obvious change
in our behaviors.
Alright, I want you to watch
this clip with me.
Some things might be going on
on the side screens,
but try and focus on
the image in the front
and the man at the window.
(Eerie music)
(Woman screams)
PC: Sorry about that.
I needed to get a reaction.
(Laughter)
I’m actually tracking the carbon dioxide
you exhale in the room right now.
We’ve installed tubes
throughout the theater,
lower to the ground,
because CO2 is heavier than air.
But they’re connected
to a device in the back
that lets us measure, in real time,
with high precision,
the continuous differential
concentration of CO2.
The clouds on the sides are actually
the real-time data visualization
of the density of our CO2.
You might still see
a patch of red on the screen,
because we’re showing increases
with larger colored clouds,
larger colored areas of red.
And that’s the point
where a lot of us jumped.
It’s our collective suspense
driving a change in carbon dioxide.
Alright, now, watch this
with me one more time.
(Cheerful music)
(Woman laughs)
PC: You knew it was coming.
But it’s a lot different
when we changed the creator’s intent.
Changing the music and the sound effects
completely alter the emotional
impact of that scene.
And we can see it in our breath.
Suspense, fear, joy
all show up as reproducible,
visually identifiable moments.
We broadcast a chemical signature
of our emotions.
It is the end of the poker face.
Our spaces, our technology
will know what we’re feeling.
We will know more about each other
than we ever have.
We get a chance to reach in and connect
to the experience and sentiments
that are fundamental to us as humans
in our senses, emotionally and socially.
I believe it is the era of the empath.
And we are enabling the capabilities
that true technological partners can bring
to how we connect with each other
and with our technology.
If we recognize the power
of becoming technological empaths,
we get this opportunity
where technology can help us bridge
the emotional and cognitive divide.
And in that way, we get to change
how we tell our stories.
We can enable a better future
for technologies like augmented reality
to extend our own agency
and connect us at a much deeper level.
Imagine a high school counselor
being able to realize
that an outwardly cheery student
really was having a deeply hard time,
where reaching out can make
a crucial, positive difference.
Or authorities, being able
to know the difference
between someone having
a mental health crisis
and a different type of aggression,
and responding accordingly.
Or an artist, knowing
the direct impact of their work.
Leo Tolstoy defined his perspective of art
by whether what the creator intended
was experienced by the person
on the other end.
Today’s artists can know
what we’re feeling.
But regardless of whether
it’s art or human connection,
today’s technologies
will know and can know
what we’re experiencing on the other side,
and this means we can be
closer and more authentic.
But I realize a lot of us
have a really hard time
with the idea of sharing our data,
and especially the idea
that people know things about us
that we didn’t actively choose to share.
Anytime we talk to someone,
look at someone
or choose not to look,
data is exchanged, given away,
that people use to learn,
make decisions about
their lives and about ours.
I’m not looking to create a world
where our inner lives are ripped open
and our personal data
and our privacy given away
to people and entities
where we don’t want to see it go.
But I am looking to create a world
where we can care about
each other more effectively,
we can know more about when
someone is feeling something
that we ought to pay attention to.
And we can have richer experiences
from our technology.
Any technology
can be used for good or bad.
Transparency to engagement
and effective regulation
are absolutely critical
to building the trust for any of this.
But the benefits that “empathetic
technology” can bring to our lives
are worth solving the problems
that make us uncomfortable.
And if we don’t, there are
too many opportunities and feelings
we’re going to be missing out on.
Thank you.
(Applause)