What would happen to human interaction if AI could read our emotions?

This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: AI systems are increasingly being developed to recognize emotions by analyzing facial expressions, voices, body language and other physiological signals. Although the scientific validity of many of these systems remains contested, they are already being tested in health care and security settings.

Rather than focusing on the technology's current shortcomings, PhD candidate Prégent asks a different question: What if these systems work exactly as intended? "Companies are showcasing all the benefits of these technologies," she says. "As philosophers and scholars, it's our job to wave a flag and show what could be at stake if they become reliable." To explore the implications of fully functioning emotion recognition technologies (ERTs), Prégent developed several future scenarios.

One involves a surgeon arriving at a hospital to perform an operation. Before she enters the operating room, an ERT system flags her as emotionally unstable. She is taken aside by her employer and prevented from operating.

The surgeon insists she is perfectly capable of carrying out the procedure. The reason for the alert has nothing to do with her professional skills. She is going through a difficult divorce and is worried about one of her children.

Although she deliberately left those concerns at home, the technology has interpreted her emotional state as a reason to question whether she can do her job. "The technology forces her to expose something that belongs to her private life," Prégent says. "She has to explain what is happening at home and justify why she believes she can still perform the operation.

But the system has already judged her emotional state and a decision has been made." For Prégent, the example illustrates a broader societal risk. People occupy many different social roles throughout their lives: They are surgeons, but also parents, partners, friends and neighbors. They usually decide for themselves which aspects of those roles they bring to a particular situation.