Your Face Gives You Away

There is a new company called Faception. It's main product is a software designed to "read" you face. The software can tell, by looking at you, if you are a good poker player, a terrorist, an academic, an extrovert. I'm not sure of all the science, but from what I've seen, it's basically looking at body language and other nonverbal cues to determine your motives.

Who knows if that works? But if it does, think of all the really cool things we could do with that. I'm not just talking about the facial recognition cameras in public place like airports. I'm thinking this is a major step forward in creating a real, high-functioning android, capable of determining emotion in humans or other subtle changes in emotion and mood.

Think about it. An android that could tell when you were acting differently--no matter how slightly--and determine the significance of that change. Your aging grandma may display subtle signs of illness or depression or dementia that her robofriend picks up on before anyone else.

I think that's a fascinating idea. I wonder if anyone is working to include this kind of softwar into robotics?