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Computers May Ease Life's Vexations Tom Stein, Chronicle Staff Writer The San Francisco Chronicle

07/26/99

"Hi, honey, how was your day?" A sympathetic greeting from your spouse after a hard day at the office? Today, yes. But tomorrow, it could be from your personal computer. Thursday, an elite group gathered for the seventh annual New Paradigms for Using Computers Workshop. "Computers will know us better than we know ourselves and will make the best decisions for us," said Ted Selker, an IBM Fellow and the brains behind the annual conference. "It's already starting to happen." He envisions a personal computer that knows when you're happy or sad. Or a clothing rack in a department store that understands your tastes and preferences better than you do. Or a car phone that knows not to distract you when you're weaving through traffic. Or even a steak knife that sniffs out bad meat before you eat it. Rosalind Picard, a presenter at the conference and a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab, said we are fast approaching the age of "affective computing." Essentially, this means people will begin to interact with computers the same way they do with other humans. These days computers that try to show signs of "intelligence" often end up being annoying. For example, a user of Microsoft Word may occasionally see random messages pop up on screen with instructions on how to better work with the software. But something your computer cannot do is gauge your reaction to that message. "When someone gives you advice at a bad time or when you're really busy, you may try to ignore them or glare at them to go away," said Picard. "Usually, they'll get the gist and back off." Computers do not have the emotional intelligence to pick up on these signals. That's why a host of technologists including Picard strive to teach computers to recognize human feelings and react in the appropriate manner. So how should a computer act? According to Picard, it should act like a dog. "When you come home from work, your dog is so happy to see you,'` she said. "But if you're in a bad mood, your dog will somehow sense that and assume an empathetic position. Machines, too, must give the illusion of empathy and sympathy." At the workshop, IBM displayed for the first time its Emotion Mouse, which can measure heart rate and body temperature and ultimately sense whether the user is happy, sad, angry, fearful or perplexed. Though still a prototype, the Emotion Mouse may be ready to hit the market in one or two years, according to the scientists at IBM. As for a practical application, IBM believes the product could be ideal for people who work in call centers. "The goal of a call center manager is to take his people off the job before they go berserk," said IBM's Chris Dryer. "Emotion Mouse can sense when call-center reps are getting frustrated and can let them know they should take a break." IBM is in the early stages of piloting another intelligent system called Simple User Interest Tracker (Suitor) that pays attention to a computer user's behavior and actions. Through a miniature camera embedded in a monitor, Suitor carefully follows the user's gaze to determine his or her interests and information needs. The tracking system is called "BlueEyes." If you are reading an online magazine, for example, Suitor can monitor your eye gaze to determine where on the screen you are looking and then do an external Web search on its own to find additional information about that topic. But the question remains: Do we really want our computers to think and feel and act like us? Warns one conference participant, "The world is artificial enough. I fear we'll be drifting off even farther into a world of fake emotions and feelings."

-- Ct Vronsky (Vronsky@anna.com), July 26, 1999

Answers

Let's see how computers have helped me at work. I was at a financial services company that used computers to track every possible activity of every day including how many tenths of a second between calls. They also used key cards to track when someone went for a coffee or snack, routed callers with small accounts to the back of the que, automatically sent another call through even if there was paperwork to process, and digitally recorded calls for critiqing later. (Breathing a little too hard on that call, I'm afraid. You were also 4.5 seconds over call time on the next call. Are we overservicing clients again? Your key card went to the cafe 4 times that day-are you drinking too much coffee?) Our computer also had a program called "universal agent," that would route work electronically to your cube if it detected non-activity for more than 20 seconds. I'm not kidding, folks. 20% of our work force had repetitive motion injury (6 surgeries myself, thank-you). We then had a class one day about good ergonomics, but the next week more injuries were reported, as the call computer reported a 20% decrease in productivity. Everyone worked twice as hard to make up for that lost day.

I now work in software development where everyone uses email, then faxes a note if from another office, and then leaves a voice mail to make sure you got the email. We print all of our emails to cover our behinds in case the server wipes some out, and document just about every brief business conversation electronically and cc: it to everyone who might have a stake in our performance. Finally, the inherent illogical nature of the PC operating system keeps our systems crashing on a regular basis, and an average of an hour each day is taken up calling some arrogant nerd to fiddle with DOS code.

My old company will love BlueEyes. ("Looks like your eyes wandered from the screen during that last call when the client complained. If it happens again we'll have to issue a written warning.") I went from construction, to college, for this?

One might wonder if this monitoring is restricted to the lower ranks. I have a friend who makes 90K a year, commission only, selling surgical equipement nation-wide. And yet, he has to report to his laptop about how long his lunches are, how long a drive it is to a client (so the computer can check it against a built-in map) and how productive he was on the plane.

What will Emotion Mouse do when it discovers that it's user is sad, angry, perplexed, paranoid and stressed 8 HOURS A DAY? What will Emotion Mouse do when it discovers that it's user WANTS TO THROW IT AGAINST THE WALL AND RIP OUT ITS INNARDS WITH AN OLD FASHIONED PEN? Will Emotion Mouse still like me? Will it react in shock and give me an illegal error? Could we actually be blessed enough where the hideous strength that the PC yields could be put out of misery in Y2K?

-- Retroman (retro50@agapeis.net), July 26, 1999.

the short and sweet answer - work for yourself!

-- downtheroad (foo@foo.com), July 26, 1999.

Retroman: Shades of Colossus-The Forbin Project! These technological marvels from the same geniuses that gave us Y2K are sure making your life easier and more fulfilling!

-- Neil G.Lewis (pnglewis1@yahoo.com), July 26, 1999.