ATM companies wants to ship ATMs that use expression-analysis software to detect and respond to your moods when you're withdrawing money. Better idea: assume every customer is anxious about not having enough money and assume further that they're pissed off at how long the ATM is taking and how much their bank charges them to use it, and respond accordingly.
"We're teaching the computers to be more like human beings," said Dave Schrader, an engineer with Teradata, a division of automatic teller machine manufacturer NCR. In an attempt to give consumers [(God, how I'm coming to loathe the word consumer; bank-customers aren't "consumers" of anything; they're creditors, for Christ's sake) CD] a better banking experience, Schrader is teaching ATMs to discern emotions.
"The value of the tech is we're taking the ATM one stage closer to behaving like a good, perceptive teller might so that interactive dialogue can start beginning," Schrader said. "The ATM can adapt itself to you instead of you adapting yourself to the technology."
(Thanks, Zed!)
