Meet Baxter, the Charming Robot That Can Read Your Mind

[Narrator] This here is the robot equivalent of,

whoopsies, meet Baxter, a very expressive bot.

Baxter has a simple task.

Put a can of spray paint or a spool of wire

in the right bin.

For you or me, that's an easy decision.

Not for a robot like Baxter though.

But Baxter has a human helper,

who's noggin is hooked up to an EEG machine

which reads the electrical activity in her brain.

Specifically, the EEG is looking for signals

called error related potentials

which pop up when the brain notices a mistake.

So if Baxter seems like it's going to put the paint

can with the wire, instead of yelling at the robot,

the human can just notice the error.

And Baxter corrects the boo boo in real time.

It's a relatively simple interaction

between human and bot, sure,

but it's a sign of things to come.

Robots are more and more working alongside humans.

That's potentially dangerous because robots can be

very strong and very unaware of their surroundings.

Get them to better read our body language and emotions

and you can prevent a lot of injuries.

So don't feel bad, Baxter.

Everyone makes mistakes.

You just happen to do it more hilariously.