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AlterEgo: Voices in your head

Seems that the left-brained whizzes at Massachusetts Institute of Technology have come up with an artificial intelligence device that can keep you from looking crazy by talking to yourself in public.

You'll just look crazy wearing the device that keeps you from looking crazy.

The New York Post (nypost.com) trumpets the device under the headline, "This gadget will let you talk to yourself without speaking." It bears a link to a News.mit.edu article that informs us that "MIT researchers have developed a computer interface that can transcribe words that the user verbalizes internally but does not actually speak aloud."

The device is called AlterEgo and was developed by Arnav Kapur, a Media Lag graduate student.

Draped behind one ear and extending to just under the mouth, the white gadget looks like a cross between a badly designed customer service representative's headset/microphone and an orthodontic nightmare.

How it works: When you're thinking something but not actually saying it yet, electrodes detect neuromuscular signals in the jaw and face. The signals go to a "machine-learning system that has been trained to correlate particular signals with particular words." Bone-conduction headphones convey vibrations to your inner ear through your facial bones. You can consult the Internet this way and get your answers, completely on the sly, without having to fumble with your phone or interrupt interactions with friends and loved ones to find information on things you're trying to discuss with them.

A video shows the wearer looking at prices in the grocery store while he shops; the device gives him the totals of the items he chooses. He walks along and wonders what time it is; the machine ascertains that and gives him the time. He sits in his room and is able to make his computer screen scroll up, down, left, right.

"In one of the researchers' experiments, for instance, subjects used the system to silently report opponents' moves in a chess game and just as silently receive computer-recommended responses," according to the story. Yaaah! So the AlterEgo will even help you cheat!

But they don't say it that way. They package this invention in words guaranteed to make us think about every scary science fiction movie we've seen that involved artificial intelligence. "AlterEgo aims to combine humans and computers -- such that computing, the Internet, and AI would weave into human personality as a 'second self' and augment human cognition and abilities," according to the video. Oh, OK. We'll all be cyborgs with ugly hardware!

Perhaps worse, we will forfeit the old-school pleasure of going around muttering questions to ourselves, then grousing to ourselves about not having the answers. The saying goes that it's OK to talk to yourself ... just don't answer yourself. For artificial intelligence to answer us when we haven't even started to say anything to ourselves is essentially giving up the guaranteed right to win an argument with/have the last word with ourselves.

I also wonder how far they'll take this AlterEgo technology ... if, in fact, this gizmo will someday be familiar enough with us to give us -- without our saying a mumblin' word -- such replies as:

"Your glasses are on your head."

"No, money does not grow on trees. Yes, your child/your child's school/your mechanic/your grocer/your clothier thinks it does."

"No, they are not (expletives deleted). They are drivers who have made poor decisions."

"No. This is not your cellphone."

"I am the AlterEgo. My name is not 'Hon,' 'Baby,' or 'Doggone fool.' Or, "No, this is not the voice of your late husband/late wife/God/your conscience."

"The longest recorded sermon was preached in 2014 by Pastor Zach Zehnder in Mount Dora, Florida ... it was not your pastor."

"It's called the Whip/Nae Nae. Yes, trying it could throw your back out."

"The most popular bladder-control undergarments are ..."

"Yes. That makes you look fat."

"Ooooooo! I'm gonna tell you daughter's boyfriend you almost said that."

"Uh, no comment."

And to answer your unspoken question, it's

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Style on 04/22/2018

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