Emotion AI, Affective Computing – Humanizing Technology

Think about the last time a commercial, music video, or even a TikTok that had triggered an emotion for you. Maybe you liked it, maybe you didn’t or maybe you’re not even sure how you’ve felt watching it. While you're trying to understand your feelings, machines have probably already figured it out for you before you do. New artificial intelligences are learning and recognizing human emotions, and interactions and using that knowledge to optimize your experiences in every sector – whether it's sports, entertainment, or even healthcare.?

These technologies are referred to as Emotion AI (emotion artificial intelligence) or Affective Computing, where it measures, understands, simulates, and reacts to human emotions. A research scientist from MIT has said “Think of the way you interact with other human beings; you look at their faces, you look at their body, and you change your interaction accordingly; How can a machine effectively communicate information if it doesn’t know your emotional state if it doesn’t know how you’re feeling, it doesn’t know how you’re going to respond to specific content?” (Hernedez, 2017).?

Of course, humans have the upper hand when it comes to reading human emotion, however, machines are catching up very quickly. They are way faster than us at analyzing a great amount of data which helps them understand at a faster pace. From inflections in someone’s voice to changes in facial expressions that are hard to detect with a human eye, machines can analyze such and correlate them with certain human emotions.?

Let me give you examples of industries that use Emotion AI:

Sports:?Whoop is a personal digital fitness coach which monitors and analyses my physiological and motor data, such as my skin temperature, strain, recovery, sleep, breathing patterns, heart rate variability (HRV), respiratory rate, and menstrual cycle, stress, covid and so much more. Even though Whoop doesn’t collect (yet at least) my facial expression or voice inflections, I find it interesting how they try to capture my emotion through a short journal every morning. For instance, asking whether I feel emotionally and mentally stable yesterday, feel in control of my life, feel a sense of purpose, motivated, or experience any irritability or stress. Whoop takes the information that I’ve given and correlates it with my physiological and motoric data – and this gives them powerful information to be a great emotion recognition interface. I’m pretty excited to see how Whoop develops in the years to come.?

Mental Health:?CompanionMX, is a mental health monitoring app that listens to someone speaking into their phone and analyzes the speaker’s voice and phone use for signs of anxiety and mood changes.

Automotive:?Affective has developed an Interior Sensing AI technology that gains a deep understanding of what’s happening in a vehicle to improve road safety and help improve the passenger’s experience.

Workplace:?Based on some quick research, I’ve found that developments are happening to build an emotion-sensing technology that can reshape a workplace. Imagine a technology that exists in your workplace that can help employees make better decisions, improve concentration, and adopt healthier and more productive work styles. It’s still in the initial stages, however, this can revolutionize employees’ morale, progression, efforts, and more at the workplace. Exciting times.??

There are so many other examples that I can talk about, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.?The future is bright, and everchanging everyday with machines becoming smarter and smarter. For example, ever wondered when you’re craving something, it randomly shows up on your Instagram or Facebook? I wonder, are they listening to us or are machines that smart that they can predict what we want?

Now tell me, should we be worried about Emotion AI and what the future holds with it present in our lives?

Let me know your thoughts!