Prototype 1 debut at the Van Abbe Museum, The Netherlands, 2009. integrates wireless brainscanning using the Neurosky MindSet and real-time brain visualization projection.

Brain Fingerprinting Mind Footage circa 2004

Instructions for original Brain Fingerprinting test

Acclair has been accepted with an abstract titled: “Acclair’s Art Valuation Service: A Critical Exploration of Neuro-metric Technologies and the Human Experience”

As part of his quest to build the “Optimal Scientist” (and then retire), Schmidhuber, an Artificial-Intelligence-slash-computer-scientist extraordinaire,  asks the very human questions of  “What is Curiosity?” and “What does Interesting really means?”. (Have you ever thought about that?).

His response to these questions, although manifested in hardcore mathematical equations and lots of robotics gibberish, is still funny, engaging and comprehensible even for the likes of me.

Schmidhuber basically says that what makes things “interesting”, is really the distance between what we know about something, and the new information revealed to us at the a certain moment, or as we go through a new experience. And this distance, this gap, has to be just right. Too much will result in rejection, too little in all probability in boredom.

So, for example, if I’m a fan of Madonna’s music, and I listen to a new Lady Gaga song, there’s a good chance I’ll find it interesting. (I don’t have to “Like” it, mind you, but still be interested). However, if for some obscure reason I come across an Animal Collective track, chances are I’ll tune it out as fast as I can and put it in my mental “OOCH! NOISE!” section.

How come? (writing on the chalkboard in front of the class):

[Lady Gaga, new] – [Madonna, familiar] = Just right, Interesting

Whereas:

[Lady Gaga, new]  – [Animal Collective, unfamiliar] = Too far, Uninteresting

Ok. So I can’t exactly publish that on Science magazine, but it sort of makes sense, doesn’t it?

For us at Acclair this is fascinating stuff.  Scrumptious almost. Why? Coming next.

. . .

Sweet Appendix:

Lady Gaga:

Animal Collective:

The scene from the Acclair registration desk

This is also our first time out with the Acclair AVS iphone app (thanks Mathias Dahlström!), swell systems, server and database programming (thanks Barak Har’el!), custom data visualization (thanks Michael Doherty!), great print design (thanks Lee Schain) and super awesome artwork (thanks Kathrine Worel!).

Thank you to our fantastic volunteer attendants and the great exhibition viewers/users

We’re learning a lot about running such a complex system live, it’s a real trial-by-fire. But there’s nothing like learning on the fly! This expansion also represents a successful next step in pushing neuro-aware environments into the “everyday” and current database totals show almost 200 people have used the Art Valuation Service so far!