Creepy Tech Patents

Patent Lawyers

In the future Artificial Intelligence and robots and innovation have the promise of making our lives easier. But what happens when companies are already using types of this technology to spy on us and cross all kinds of boundaries? That’s when a tech-heavy future utopia could become problematic.

Which do you prefer a cold steel robotic hug or one from a person or animal? Microsoft has patented a tele-linked pillow to offer a type of robotic hug to those you care about when at a distance. Microsoft also recommends this technology be used to invade the space of business associates with a mechanical handshake.   

Verizon has patented an advertiser-friendly smart television that employs a few audio and visual sensors to spy on consumers while they watch television.  Then the technology uses what they learn from consumers activities during TV such as cuddling,playing a music instrument, or cleaning to target more specific ads to them.  Don’t worry the TV isn’t just spying on you: it also wants to examine how you interact with those you live with to detect patterns such as sports activity, arguing, talking, or singing. Big Brother moving into your living room anyone?   

These inventions call to mind cautionary Sci-Fi tales such as The Giver or Brave New World.  Will it really be possible that innovation could create so many choices that society may eventually become open to government powers creating a more peaceful environment of less choices.   

It’s in these moments when we could have a super hero of some sort rescue us from the dystopian future we seem determined to bring about with inventions that have lost their sense of humanity.  But who? Perhaps Wonder Woman with her Golden Lasso of Truth to prevent corporations will ill intentions from tricking us into embracing creepy technology.

After all, Wonder Woman was invented herself in 1941 by William Moulton Marston, the inventor of the polygraph machine, also known as the lie-detector test.   

Google in partnership with Motorola has invented a new version of the lie-detector test they are hoping will have broad appeal.  It’s a stylish digitally enhanced tattoo that uses galvanic skin responses to detect when it believes we’re lying.

And the digital tattoo also has the ability to dampen the voices of those that wear it.  

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