Are you nervous about entrusting your life to a self-driving car? What if you could telepathically communicate with the vehicle to instantaneously let it know if it makes a mistake?
That is the ultimate promise of technology being developed by a team fromBoston University and the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The tech uses brain signals to automatically correct a robot's errors.
Using a so-called brain-computer interface (BCI) to communicate with a robot is not new, but most methods require people to train with the BCI and even learn to modulate their thoughts to help the machine understand, the researchers said. [The 6 Strangest Robots Ever Created ]
By relying on brain signals called "error-related potentials" (ErrPs) that occur automatically when humans make a mistake or spot someone else making one, the researchers' approach allows even complete novices to control a robot with their minds , the researchers in the new study said. This can be done by simply agreeing or disagreeing with whatever actions the bot takes, the researchers said.
Working with machines
This technology could offer an intuitive and instantaneous way of communicating with machines, for applications as diverse as supervising factory robots to controlling robotic prostheses, the researchers said.
"When humans and robots work together, you basically have to learn the language of the robot, learn a new way to communicate with it, adapt to its interface," said Joseph DelPreto, a Ph.D. candidate at CSAIL who worked on the project.
"In this work, we were interested in seeing how you can have the robot adapt to us rather than the other way around," he told Live Science.
The system uses EEG brain signals to detect if a person notices robots making a mistake.
Robot 'Telepathy' Could Make Self-Driving Cars Safer
