Speech Jammer researcher and creator, Kazutaka Kurihara: Interview

Today I received the answers to my E-mail interview questions about the Speech Jammer from creator Kazutaka Kurihara. Before I go into the interview, I wanted to talk about those that envision this device as a "freedom-of-speech smart-bomb."

Like any amazing research or device, the intended use for it's research is not, and never was, to rob people of their rights or to commit crimes against humanity. It may be cliche, but the parallel of this work to Einstein's E=MC^2, metaphorically speaking, is that Einstein did not intend to create a nuclear weapon when he made the paradigm shifting equation.

With any new knowledge and device, there are intended uses and there are those people that will abuse such devices. It is not the researcher's obligation to nerf your world, but to grow the understanding of science and technology for all its good intentions and uses.

Stay Creative, It's Good For You.

Sincerely,
Grin.

Kazutaka Kurihara is the researcher at The National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) in Ibaraki-ken who devised, designed and tested the Speech Jammer Gun.  Read more about the Speech Jammer Gun in my previous post.

Speech Jammer original post.

Kazutaka Kurihara E-mail Interview:

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Grin

What is the SpeechJammer, and how does it work?

Dr. Kurihara

A: The SpeechJammer is a system to disturb people's speech. In general, human speech is jammed by giving the speakers own utterances back to them at a delay of a few hundred milliseconds (called DAF, see below). This effect can disturb people without any physical discomfort, and disappears immediately when the person stops talking.. Furthermore, this effect does not involve anyone other than the speaker. We utilized this phenomenon and implemented two prototype versions by combining a direction-sensitive microphone and a direction-sensitive speaker, and enabling the speech of a specific person to be disturbed.

SpeechJammer Prototype1

SpeechJammer prototype2

[What's DAF?]

It is thought that when we make utterances we not only generate sound as output, but also utilize the sound heard by our ears (called "auditory feedback") in our brains. Our natural utterances are jammed when the auditory feedback is artificially delayed. It is thought that this delay affects some cognitive processes in our brains. This phenomenon is known as speech disturbance by Delayed Auditory Feedback (DAF).

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Grin

You seem like a very creative person.  Some of your projects are quite interesting.

What was the inspiration for the Speech Jammer; what gave you or your team the idea for this research?

Dr. Kurihara

A: One day, at a science museum, I came by and enjoyed a demonstration about Delayed Auditory Feedback (DAF) at the cognitive science corner. When I spoke in to a microphone, my voice came back to me after a few hundred milliseconds delay, and I could not continue to speak any more. That was fun! (BTW you also may try this at your nearest science museum, because this demonstration is so popular.) They say it is one of the well-known characteristics of the human auditory system. Then I thought "Oh yeah, it can be applicable to some other domains!"

Around that time, my research interest was about developing a system that controls appropriate turn-taking in discussions, and I was looking for technologies to allow the enforcement of discussion rules for participants. Then I came up with the gun-type-SpeechJammer idea utilizing DAF. That's the destiny.

I soon consulted a friend of mine Dr. Koji Tsukada, "the gadget master," who had once demonstrated a "Directional Speaker" to me that could convey sound a few tens-of-meters with a very sharp direction sensitivity. I contacted him, because direction sensitivity was one of the key features that SpeechJammer should have and I needed a strong partner who was good at hardware. After I explained my idea to him, he agreed to join my project. It was a marriage between science and gadgets!

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Grin

How many people worked on this project together? 

Dr. Kurihara

A: Two. Koji, the second author of the paper, and I.


 

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Grin

Can you tell us a little about how you worked together?

Dr. Kurihara

A: I came up with the idea and Koji prototyped the devices. Finally we wrote the paper together.

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Grin

Did you think you would get such a strong response from the news and online?

Dr. Kurihara

A: Never.

We are really surprised at the response we are getting.

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Grin

When people contact you about the Speech Jammer, what do they most want to know?

Dr. Kurihara

A: Let me list the major reactions:

* Journalists asked us the mechanisms of SpeechJammer and who I would want to to shut up. (Grin: xD Haha!)

* An Israeli consultant in Defense asked us very specific details of the effectiveness of the device.

* Media Artists asked us to hold some exhibitions with them.

* people who are inspired by SpeechJammer provided us with some future application ideas.

* And of course, many people wanted to buy a SpeechJammer device.

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Grin

Has the response you have been getting favorable?

Dr. Kurihara

A: To some extent. But, they tend to add some dystopian future visions caused by possible abuses of SpeechJammer. I have some comments on that issue. I will elaborate in my closing answer.

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Grin

My website alone receives 20 hits a day from google keyword, "Speech Jammer Buy."  Have you thought about commercializing this product as it seems there are plenty of people that want to purchase it?

Dr. Kurihara

A: Our current prototype has many, many problems for practical use. It is just at the early stage of research. So I am sorry to inform you that currently this device is not available for everyone.

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Grin

Your research paper is well written in English. Do you write all your papers in English as well as Japanese?

Dr. Kurihara

A:  Almost all of the projects are written in the two languages. But, we tend to publish a project in Japanese earlier. So there are some time lags. (And more practically, international academic conferences are usually more difficult.)

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Grin

Is this project finished? What will you do next? 

Dr. Kurihara

A: This project has been pending, but recent increased attention might boost us to step forward.

Besides the SpeechJammer, I have been recently focusing on my CinemaGazer project among many other projects.

https://sites.google.com/site/qurihara/top-english/cinemagazer

It is totally different from SpeechJammer, but has some of the same root philosophy. Modern society unavoidably requires us to receive too much information: including speech, text, and movies. So I think that we have to establish some technological support so that recipients can actively control the comfortable flow of the information they receive. This project will be presented at AVI'12, an academic conference, this May. You can read the preprint article and watch a demo movie from the above link.

Koji has been creating many, many simple gadgets to improve our daily activities. For example, AwareHanger is a context-aware hanger that can detect laundry status automatically and inform users via multiple media (e.g., sounds or Twitter), and EaTeremin that entertains you with various sound effects determined by what food you are about to eat.

AwareHanger:

      http://orange.siio.jp/~nanami/project-en.html

EaTheremin:

      http://orange.siio.jp/~azusa/projects_04.html

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Grin

Is there anything else you would like to say about this project for anyone interested?

Dr. Kurihara

A: Let me talk a bit about the philosophy of SpeechJammer. I love freedom of speech, of course, but this freedom should be equally given to everyone. As I wrote in the paper, one of our goals is to prevent "the louder, the stronger" situations: "Fair discussions are essential for resolving conflicts through communication. We have to establish and obey rules for proper turn-taking when speaking. However, some people tend to lengthen their turns or deliberately interrupt other people in order to establish their presence rather than achieve more fruitful discussions. Furthermore, some people tend to jeer at speakers to invalidate their speech. These are typical abuses of speech that allow "the louder, the stronger" to gain control of the proceedings."

I agree that this technology might be abused by bad people. But think about the future when everyone has a portable type SpeechJammer device built in their cell phones. If someone abuses this device against you and takes advantage in talking, you also can use it against them. Different from the conventional weapons such as samurai swords, and pistols, SpeechJammer is "dialogue-left", i.e. it causes no killing or harm but leaves room for discussions after switching the devices off.

We live in the twenty first century, when it is said that communication is the most important means of resolving conflicts.  We hope SpeechJammer is used for building the peaceful world.

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Grin

I also hope that creative individuals will find a productive use for this technology.  Time will put its use into place, and testing and research will provide understanding of its proper use.  Thank you very much for your time.  I really appreciate your work and ingenuity.  Stay creative, It's Good For You.

Dr. Kurihara

A: Thanks and keep in touch! 

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