NeuroTypicals and Atypicals

Most NeuroTypicals are weak in Math/Logical Intelligence. And so, over the past half century, those of us who were strong in Math/Logic Intelligence gave the world just what they most needed — calculators and computers and other high-functioning technology systems that automagically did the bothersome math/logic for them.

Now that we've done pretty much all we can to help those who are weak where we are strong, we're taking up the challenge of using the same innovative technology to help ourselves and others who are more severely affected by Autism.

The big frontier in Affective Computing, now underway in Rosalind Picard's group at the MIT Media Lab, is to develop innovative technology systems that assist those of us who are weak at social-emotional-political information processing to compute the same insights that NeuroTypicals do so effortlessly.

It's taken us a long time, because NeuroTypicals (being relatively weak in scientific and mathematical methods) have not elevated their own innate socio-political intuitions into an express theory or computable model that we could readily transfer into silicon-based processors.

But now that's changing. Cynthia Breazeal's group is building Sociable Robots, one of which has just been installed in Cahners Computer Place at the Boston Museum of Science. The MDS Robot is mobile, dextrous, and sociable.

Work in innovative technology for individuals on the Autism Spectrum has been going on for several years now. Work is also underway in enhanced and automated systems for StoryCraft and Drama Games.