When Sociable Computing Meets Autism
From: New Scientist - 02/17/2007 -  Vol. 193, No. 2591, P. 26
By: Celeste Biever

Researchers at the MIT Media Lab are bringing together the study of autism
with the study of sociable computing in hopes of gaining insights into both
fields. "Autism is of great interest to me," says Media Lab sociable
computing researcher Rosalind Picard. "It turns out we are trying to solve a
lot of the same problems that people who study autism are trying to solve."
She describes machines as autistic because of their inability to empathize,
understand facial expressions, and generalize between different situations.
She advocates studying the use of "mind reading" devices on people with
autistic spectrum disorders (ASD). One such device could give people with ASD
a "print-out" of other people's emotions, since those with ASD often seek
social contact but cannot attain it. In the case of helping people with ASD,
robots would not replace humans, rather they could do what humans are unable
to, explains Sherry Turkle, who studies relationships that people form with
robots. Picard suggests that this research would go both ways: Studying the
way people with autism interact with the world can inform researchers trying
to create increasingly sociable robots. The more systematic approach toward
social interaction taken by people with ASD could be easier to recreate in a
computer program than that of a "neurotypical person." The researchers make
it clear that the comparison between robots and those with ASD is only a
metaphor used to better understand the condition and sociable robots, rather
than an equating of people to machines. They also do not see ASD as something
which needs to be "cured," rather as an alternative, potentially
advantageous, mental state. 

Read the entire article at:
http://www.newscientisttech.com/channel/tech/mg19325917.100

Links:
Rosalind Picard
http://web.media.mit.edu/~picard/

Affective Computing
http://affect.media.mit.edu/

ESP - The Emotional-Social Intelligence Prosthesis
http://affect.media.mit.edu/projects.php?id=1935
http://affect.media.mit.edu/projectpages/esp/

Autism Theory and Technology
http://courses.media.mit.edu/2007spring/mas962/

Help for Autism
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17748&ch=biotech

Disability By Design?
http://joyofautism.blogspot.com/2007/01/disability-by-design.html