What Emotion AI Can Do Today
Emotion AI involves understanding and processing human emotions through deep learning programs. Several industries can benefit from Emotion AI through its limited bias and ability to identify microexpressions of consumers. This AI technology is continuously advancing and producing more accurate insights for businesses.
What is Emotion AI?
Artificial intelligence technology is constantly developing and growing. The newest advancements include identifying emotions. Interpreting people’s emotions provides valuable information for companies, leading to integral insights regarding consumers. This knowledge is valuable for marketing campaigns, healthcare, product testing, and general improvement. Gaining a better understanding of people’s emotions allows you to predict how they would react to specific content.
“Emotion AI is a subset of artificial intelligence that measures, understands, simulates, and reacts to human emotions.”
~ Meredith Somers
How Emotion AI Works
Emotion AI is meant to interpret emotions the way people do. Currently, people are better at interpreting emotions than machines. Machines are continuing to learn information as more data is inputted to analyze. Human faces and voices are being processed by AI to create a more sophisticated understanding of microexpressions. The machine’s results become more accurate and precise as more data is uploaded into the program. Over the next few years, there will be more data, therefore, advancing the abilities of Emotion AI.
Challenges in Emotion AI
It’s important to remember that machines are only as accurate as the information being put into them. This causes some red flags with the accuracy of the results being produced. There have been questions regarding whether Emotion AI is ethical or effective.
Emotions are Cultural
A large factor that needs to be considered in Emotion AI is the way emotions are expressed throughout various cultures.
“How people communicate anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise varies substantially across cultures, situations, and even across people within the situation.”
~ Lisa Feldman Barrett
North Eastern University
The basic emotions such as anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise are seen across cultures. An issue that occurs in Emotion AI is the different ways we decode these emotions. Microexpressions may be interpreted differently depending on the country or culture. This presents the risk of bias as the decoders may record the emotions based on stereotypes. Another point to consider, certain emotions may be expressed more in some countries compared to others due to societal norms. For example, anger was endorsed more in Israel compared to the U.S. Culture influences our lives and this is important to consider in Emotion AI. The perception of emotions can vary and this influences the decoding process.
Human Bias
When images of varying facial expressions are uploaded into the AI program, the researcher has to label each photo, and this introduces bias. A way to avoid bias and subjectivity is to create computer generated facial expressions. Researchers also have to be aware of how different cultures express emotions and how this influences their facial expressions.
Some researchers a
re recommending government regulation for Emotion AI. Legislative protection is being proposed to protect the general public’s privacy. This AI programming can be used to monitor facial expressions and the tone
of voices during job interviews, as well as, draw negative attention to students in school because their face may be processed as angry. These are concerns to consider when developing this technology.
Humans Can Hide Their Emotions
The science behind Emotion AI has been questioned as more research is conducted regarding its accuracy. Overall, connecting facial expressions to emotions is not universal. Researchers discovered that people “match their emotional state by only 20% to 30% of the time.” A large factor that impacts our emotions is the context of the situation. Isolated images are limited and including video data would provide more effective results by showing the progression of the facial expression.
Opportunities for Emotion AI
Emotion AI can be applied to virtually any industry: advertising, call centers, mental health, and academia to name a few. It is so important to understand emotions in these fields. Are your customers happy with your new product? Are your employees and students engaged in their work? Emotion AI can help answer these questions and inform business decisions.
Advertising with Emotion AI
Advertising companies are using Emotion AI programs to predict consumer behavior and determine how likely a person is to purchase a product based on their facial expressions. In advertising research, the terms and conditions informed consumers that the technology would use their phone and laptop cameras to analyze their face while they view each advertisement that pops up on their screen. Even though this was only a case study, the technology can eventually reach a large number of consumers. Emotion AI is useful in advertising because it provides an opportunity for marketers “to really tell if a particular ad resonated with people or was offensive, or if it was confusing or struck a heartstring.” With this technology, advertisers can amplify their reach and gain a better understanding of how to connect with their target audience.
Monitor Call Center Performance with AI
Call centers can use Emotion AI to monitor people’s voices and identify the mood of callers. This involves voice analytic software and incorporates research used for identifying voice patterns. Using this software in real time throughout the conversation provides the call center agents with information to adjust how they handle the phone call.
Emotion Detection in Mental Health and Wellness
Mental health is another industry Emotion AI is expanding into. Apps focusing on mental health monitoring are being developed to analyze users’ mood changes. This involves listening to the speaker’s voice and analyzing their phone usage. The technology is meant to help consumers better understand their emotions. Improving the user’s self-awareness can develop healthy coping skills and help better understand stressors. Companies developing these apps have been working with the Department of Veteran Affairs, the Massachusetts General Hospital, and Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston. More Emotion AI technology is being developed to benefit people’s mental health. An interesting creation are wearable devices that monitor a person’s heartbeat to identify any stress or frustration. The device then releases a scent to combat the negative emotion they are experiencing. Emotion AI can be a useful tool for those struggling with their mental health.
Getting Started with Emotion AI
Emotion AI is a growing market that is predicted to be worth $56 billion by 2024. MoodMe provides AI services for both businesses and consumers. The apps and facial insights are advancing everyday to provide the best quality results for customers.
MoodMe uses machine learning to create data sets including a mix of ages, ethnicities, and genders to ensure the most accurate results are being produced. The data sets consist of over one million faces that are continuously monitored. No faces are stored and privacy is an essential part of the company’s values. Being an ethical leader in the Emotion AI market has led to MoodMe’s success and growth with customers such as Gucci and Nissan. MoodMe strives to reach more people and educate others about Emotion AI.
