Talk to yourself

Humans apparently have an "internal narrative"; that is, while conscious, they have an internal conversation with themselves, as a way of processing sensory input and planning and predicting future events.

Some humans, when alone (or when they think they're alone) actually talk out loud "to themselves". This can be embarrassing, amusing, and revealing.

It would be instructive to observe the effects if humans could actually talk "to themselves".

So, BorgCo are developing a new, highly sophisticated heuristic software package to allow humans to do just that.

To initalize the system, the computer takes multiple images of the user from numerous angles, while the user is (instructed by the system) speaking, listening, gesturing, yawning, and other typical activities. This allows an on-screen avatar of the user to be generated by combining the images with a basic animation model of human movement.

As part of the learning process, the system poses questions such as "Do you like cheese ?", "Who's the best singer ever ?" and "What's the capital of Paraguay ?". This builds up both a voiceprint library - allowing the machine to accurately reproduce the user's tones, inflection and speech patterns - but creates a database of likes, dislikes, hopes, fears and ... quirks.

The more the user interacts with the system, the more closely it learns to mimic and reflect their behavior and attitudes. As the learning process continues and the user gains confidence and trust, they are encouraged to open up and confide more and more personal details, thus improving the model even more.

Eventually, if you want to talk something over - something really important - with someone you trust, then you don't have to find another human to confide in. You can, quite literally, talk to yourself. You won't be shocked, or offended, or judgemental, because the person you're talking to is, in effect, you - and will share all your prejudices, ideas and world view.

Just think of it - the perfect companion ! Sign up today !