Leave it to technology to make weird tech that people might need or not need, but this one is interesting nonetheless. This new brain-computer interface system is able to tell who you’ll be attracted to. It’s been trained to pick up the neural activity of your brain whenever you see a new person’s face. The researchers behind the study are from the University of Copenhagen.
So basically it will tell you if you’ll be attracted to the new face or not. This sounds interesting, but to be honest, if you need a machine to tell you if you like a person or not then you shouldn’t be looking for someone in the first place. But more power to whoever uses this. Sometimes we need the affirmation that we like someone before finding the courage to approach them.
The algorithm matches your neural patterns to existing data of other participants and can tell whether you’ll like a person even before you see them. Imagine an AI-powered tinder, where your recommendations will be according to your brain waves. Does this mean I’ll be matched with anime waifus?
The team admitted that the algorithm could be used for targetted ads, showing a Netflix-like list of recommendations of people that you would like. The senior study author, Tuukka Ruotsalo from the University of Copenhagen said in a press release, “Through comparing the brain activity of others, we’ve now also found it possible to predict faces each participant would find appealing prior to seeing them. n this way, we can make reliable recommendations for users — just as streaming services suggest new films or series based on the history of the users”.
Co-author Michiel Spapé, further explained that “Due to social norms or other factors, users may not reveal their actual preferences through their behavior online. Therefore, explicit behavior may be biased. The brain signals we investigated were picked up very early after viewing, so they are more related to immediate impressions than carefully considered behavior”.
If they’re based on first impressions then maybe this device could figure out which sex a person likes. The potential for this kind of algorithm is immense but the targeted ads could make people argue the implications this could have on the privacy of the people whose neural activity is recorded.