Subvocalization Computer Interface

I hear ya' bro'...

What about recharging stations? Will we have recharge stations? ....'cause I could use a recharge about now....

Don't everybody think at once!!

Hopefully, there would be a keyword like Alexa uses. None of would probably want everything we were thinking to go out over the air.

I think this would be a lot of fun to play with, thinking words and hearing them come out of a synthesizer!

I remember, long ago, a friend of mine built an alpha wave detector and it wasn't working. He asked me to fix it, and when I got it working, trying it out was really fascinating.

If you push everything out of your mind, apparently, the brain generates a 10 Hz signal (alpha) that triggered the machine to generate a sound. It was kind of spooky controlling the machine with the mind!

Pike 1

Kirk 0

I, I only looked in her eyes, but I picked
Up something I just can't explain.

I'm pickin' up good vibrations,
She's giving me excitations. Good, good, good - good vibrations.

I, I bet I know what she's like.
And I can feel how right she'd be for me.

Go Beach Boys!!

I'm all for aids for the speech impaired, as long they're not misused. I think you might feel a bit different when a future job interview goes something like this:
"You're doing very well, Mr/ Rixter, we just have one more test for you. Please slip this special headset on and watch the following video, you don't need to say a word..."

From this review: "...In The Parallax View reporter Beatty penetrates the mysterious Parallax Corporation, and when he enters their recruiting process finds himself being shown (subjected to?) a 'special' short film in a theater wired to measure his emotional reactions. He's already taken a multiple-choice psychological test (right out of Psych 101) designed to identify violent, volatile applicants. Now he is the sole occupant of a huge auditorium, and the house lights dim while a voice calmly instructs him to keep his hands on the wired armrests..."

The only difference is the sensor available in 1974...

Access to knowledge is the first step to comprehension but it is only the first step of a long list of steps.

Big Brother is watching you (and listening).

This looks ideal for some handicapped to communicate with the public, think of the late Stephen Hawking. I don't see this having a great public appeal for the same reasons that Google glass failed.

There maybe niche markets this could work if the transducers can be concealed for surreptitious communication. However, the military already solved the problem of silent communication by the use hand signals within a patrol without breaking radio silence.

The link isn't working so I didn't read the article...

I find it hard to believe that this type of neural information processing would be more accurate than, say, the early versions of speech recognition software. Anyone remember calling up a bank or a service provider and trying to have your words understood by da machine?

I'm pretty certain my jaws don't automatically mouth out my every thought "subvocally". Completely certain, in fact. I'm pretty certain it would have to be a deliberate effort for even the most minimal level of accuracy to be hoped for.

OTOH given the human propensity for gross and shameless abuses, I could imagine the technology being abused by an "evil controller" by falsely claiming that the output is a true representation of somebody's "bad thawts". A la Spanish Inquisition of the future, y'know. (or Border control? )

On the positive outlook side... granted that anyone suffering the "locked in" experience is bound to have developed a LOT more patience than the rest of us, I could see the device having a workable outcome, for someone who has all the time and reason in the world to make the darn thing work.

I mean, wasn't Steven Hawking's speech synthesizer similar in principle? That seemed to work fine...

I'm pretty certain my jaws don't automatically mouth out my every thought "subvocally"

...also, how would this work with people eating or drinking or those that chew gum whilst they use the computer?

Yes, it seems to raise the question, can we think and chew gum at the same time.

Can we thimk at all?

".... Someday people will laugh at our awkwardness..."

Well, maybe, but probably only sub-vocally.

Are the words single syllable,, ?

Does the device need to be custom fitted to the client ?

Do we actually 'mouth' the words even when reading silently in our heads.

I guess we do without thinking about it. I recall at infant school when learning to read that we spoke the words out loud - then sometime later having to learn 'silent' reading and not to speak the words.

And if not reading something, during moments of idle silent thought, my wife often says she can 'hear' me thinking.

Perhaps there is a bit more to this idea than meets the eye.

. . . she doesn't really hear you thinking, she just KNOWS what you're thinking. I know my wife does. After 30 years, it's bound to happen.

Star Trek, pertinent as ever.

Hello Computer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9kTVZiJ3Uc

Fear not the robot uprising and our subsequent enslavement. (We'll do it for them smiling as we go.)

Talking to machines?

Doesn't anybody use a any more?

That sure looks like a...

...

Ahem - er, it's not what it looks like; it's what it can do for the user.