Wellness

Recently, I read an article about affective computing to detect and interpret emotions, and according to the article, it was forecasted to become a 37-billion-dollar industry by 2026. It was noted that this was mainly due to the COVID-19 pandemic increasingly disrupting our lives and forcing us to live online to some extent. There are many positive aspects of the expansion of technology. The explosion of immersion experiences with artists like Monet and Van Gogh has been prevalent in today’s culture to invoke emotional responses that allow multisensory reactions for those who go to one of the shows. It is on my list of things to do in my lifetime. 

Having technology created to express and adapt to human emotions is questionable. Yes, we have smartphones with apps to help with stress and anxiety, facial recognition technology which is used in retail, banking, security, and entertainment industry, and translation devices that allow us to communicate with people who speak English as a second language or not at all; especially when we travel abroad, activity devices that will track physical cues in our bodies, ambient AI in the form of apps to help with calm response and sleeping. The list goes on. Do you get the point? Technology has changed many aspects of our lives, and it’s not stopping; however, technology crossing the line being used to replicate emotions with artificial intelligence is too much. 

The Cognitive Behavior Theory suggests that our thoughts, emotions, and behavior are connected where what we think affects our emotions, which affects what we do with those thoughts and feelings. So, using artificial intelligence to tap into that part of being human puts humanity at risk because it cannot capture the diversity of human emotion. Because these programs are programmed by humans, can they remove their cultural and racial biases? What will the impact be on mental health, not to mention overall wellness? The expansion of artificial intelligence into the realm of humanity and people connecting potentially disrupts our need to be in a community. Sure, you have introverted, extroverted, and ambivert personality types that navigate life in ways each of us needs or wants to live; however, emotion AI will put that to the test in possibly extreme ways. Will affecting computing create new disparities? We will all see if the multiverse collides with us and our emotional well-being. 

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Image by Ralf Kunze from Pixababy