Wednesday 29 May 2013

Elle Virtual Shrink

If you haven't read Frederik Pohl's Gateway (1977) I can recommend it as one of the best science-fiction novels ever. It won the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, the Locus Award and the John W. Campbell Award (CLICK). Part of the story is recounted by the protagonist to an Artificial Intelligence Freudian therapist program he nicknames Sigfrid von Shrink. Whenever I see the latest attempts at AI psychotherapy, I think of Gateway. Here is Elle Virtual Shrink, a computer-generated image created by the University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT). She will be a diagnostic and therapeutic tool for veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder when she is ready to go solo (CLICK to read more).

2 Comments:

At 3/6/13, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Weren't they going to do something like that with the NHS? You had to skype in your complaint. Stupid.

 
At 3/6/13, Blogger Unknown said...

It's called NHS Direct:
http://www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk/
Great for hypocondriacs! They can visit every time they sneeze.

The virtual shrink is totally different. It works, but needs refining.

 

Post a Comment

<< Home