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Upgraded Google Glass helps autistic kids “see” emotions

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Re: Upgraded Google Glass helps autistic kids “see” emotions

#31
I wonder what effect this will have on our culture long term. It would be unfortunate if Glass' determination ends being seen as the ground truth.

I have noticed a certain phenomenon where people who are bad at something read books about it to compensate, and then having read books on the subjects start considering themselves experts on it and preach to others, closing the loop from descriptive to prescriptive.

Edited: Added second paragraph

Re: Upgraded Google Glass helps autistic kids “see” emotions

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that autistic people may not possess a theory of mind. They do not understand or anticipate the desires and intentions of others, and may not be aware that other people even have desires and intentions. You can't explain dinner to them if they are unable to comprehend that you intend to make it and that you desire the space and time to do so efficiently.

Most likely, both my sons qualify as somewhere on the autism spectrum. They were never formally diagnosed and I used to routinely give advice to parents whose children did have a formal diagnosis when I was involved with an educational organization. Edit: I left out the critical part. I gave them advice and routinely said for the longest time "I don't have any ASD kids, but when my kid does that..." It happened so mu…

I think this is very true. I also had a lot of social communication issues growing up and still do. Not receiving special treatment and trying hard to conform with others improved my social skills a lot. Social skills can definitely be learned. You can learn to make eye contact even if it hurts a lot, you can learn to attentively listen and nod.

But I think the greatest help in my social skills was watching a lot of TV shows (especially sit-coms). Many make fun of socially awkard situations, word plays, misunderstandings taken to the extreme teaches you social interaction by example and it's fun :).

Re: Upgraded Google Glass helps autistic kids “see” emotions

#34

It sounds to me like you could do a lot more to just educate the parents. You don't get mad and shout at a young child who has decided to put the silverware away. You talk to them about the process of making and serving dinner. He could have been shown that one way to make the silverware more orderly is set the table for everyone while Mom cooks. That was my response to my then five year old being impatient with dinn…

The point is that autistic people may not possess a theory of mind. They do not understand or anticipate the desires and intentions of others, and may not be aware that other people even have desires and intentions. You can't explain dinner to them if they are unable to comprehend that you intend to make it and that you desire the space and time to do so efficiently.

After having interacted with a person with autism daily for a few years (and parts of their social groups which include others with autism) I wonder if there's any truth to that at all.

It almost seems as the opposite was true where telling of intention and desire is _extremely accurate_, to a scary degree, if it's interpreted through text or speech. But where body language and weird social norms/white lies that are important social queues for me go completely unnoticed.

If people not on the spectrum actually understand others intentions and desires more, and not just have the ability to read it from social queues people on the spectrum don't pick up, what does that say about so many people acting in selfish and mean ways if it benefits them?

Re: Upgraded Google Glass helps autistic kids “see” emotions

#35
post #5

Is this a claim that computers are better at emotions than some humans? Something does not sit well.

Seems like its a soft push for creepy ad-tech from Google. Google will happily mine this data and eventually roll it into their ad business, while claiming its "anonymized".

Re: Upgraded Google Glass helps autistic kids “see” emotions

#38
post #5

Is this a claim that computers are better at emotions than some humans? Something does not sit well.

"Autism" is a term that is used to denote a complex set of neurological stuff, but one common theme is that autistic people have difficulty making sense of the deluge of sensory input. I could see how something which helps to simplify this could be helpful for some autistic people. So yes.

Wouldn't work for everyone- My brother was severely autistic and he would have just smashed the glasses.

Re: Upgraded Google Glass helps autistic kids “see” emotions

#39
post #31

I wonder what effect this will have on our culture long term. It would be unfortunate if Glass' determination ends being seen as the ground truth. I have noticed a certain phenomenon where people who are bad at something read books about it to compensate, and then having read books on the subjects start considering themselves experts on it and preach to others, closing the loop from descriptive to prescriptive. Edite…

I think everyone to some extent learns to hack some aspect or another of the social fabric by something close to simulating patterns which come more or less natural to another person. But there are introspective lessons in coming to terms with these obstacles in the first place that are maybe the things of truer value and which could be lost in artificial reward games.

Re: Upgraded Google Glass helps autistic kids “see” emotions

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that autistic people may not possess a theory of mind. They do not understand or anticipate the desires and intentions of others, and may not be aware that other people even have desires and intentions. You can't explain dinner to them if they are unable to comprehend that you intend to make it and that you desire the space and time to do so efficiently.

After having interacted with a person with autism daily for a few years (and parts of their social groups which include others with autism) I wonder if there's any truth to that at all. It almost seems as the opposite was true where telling of intention and desire is _extremely accurate_, to a scary degree, if it's interpreted through text or speech. But where body language and weird social norms/white lies that are…

Yes, it's accurate to a degree of being almost uncomputable. Most people instead have simplified, efficient, stereotype-based heuristic models of others.
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