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Emotion-detecting tech should be restricted by law

bbc.com

31–40 of 58 posts

Re: Emotion-detecting tech should be restricted by law

#31
post #19
post #7

How we express our emotions will change and this will be useless

Unlikely; emotional expressions seem to be innate and hard-wired into the brain, hence the fundamental similarity between emotional expressions of groups separated for tens of thousands of years.

>Unlikely; emotional expressions seem to be innate and hard-wired into the brain

Nope. https://www.psychologicalscience.org/publications/emotional-...

Re: Emotion-detecting tech should be restricted by law

#32

As someone from a less represented group in tech, I would want to know exactly who is classifying emotions present on the dataset. I don’t want to be mistaken as feeling angry anytime I don’t look happy or sad. There’s definitely unconscious bias to how certain people’s feelings are interpreted that lead to inaccurate perceptions.

Note: as long as you are well represented in the dataset your representation in tech won’t matter.

I can be well represented in the data set, but here people can unwittingly classify my emotions incorrectly due to unconscious bias. What good will the data do if every time, I appear confused, I am labeled and angry?

Re: Emotion-detecting tech should be restricted by law

#33
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give me a break. People don't use prosthetic limbs as a tool to decide if someone is lying to the police or if they should get the job. Your analogy is less than adequate.

Can you please edit swipes like "Give me a break" out of your posts to HN? Your comment would be fine with just the other two sentences. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Seriously? What pedantic nonsense. It's a minor, hardly offensive phrase designed to add some emotional color to comments. We're not robots here. Many people write comments with expletives (and don't get downvoted) along with all sorts of things, but you fixate here on "give me a break".

Re: Emotion-detecting tech should be restricted by law

#35
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please edit swipes like "Give me a break" out of your posts to HN? Your comment would be fine with just the other two sentences. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Seriously? What pedantic nonsense. It's a minor, hardly offensive phrase designed to add some emotional color to comments. We're not robots here. Many people write comments with expletives (and don't get downvoted) along with all sorts of things, but you fixate here on "give me a break".

I understand how this can seem pedantic, but when people lead with swipes like that, it subtly cues the discussion towards disrespect and even aggression. Maybe they don't land that way with you, but the spectrum of the audience here is pretty broad, and it's best to just omit things that predictably activate major subsets. Given that such remarks are cheap and mechanical, adding no information, it improves the signal/noise ratio to take them out anyhow. To me it seems clear how much better the GP comment reads without the first bit—how much more visible the actual point becomes.

Emotional color is welcome in HN comments, but reflexive indignation is a different thing. For the sake of the commons here, we all need to work on containing the petty anger that flares up instantly and is all too easy to vent onto the internet.

Re: Emotion-detecting tech should be restricted by law

#36

When I first read that some retailers (Walgreens) were putting face-scanning emotion profiling tech in their stores, I couldn't help but think about how many false readings would come from people who have resting bitch face.† Then I thought it would be awesome to go to Dallas or some other place where this is common and flood the stores with these people, making the technology useless. † https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wi…

When all the retailers share data they’ll identify you as Rufus Postlethwaite and calibrate to your resting bitch face.

Re: Emotion-detecting tech should be restricted by law

#37

So I guess with my anxiety disorder even computers will think “I have something to hide” because I look nervous. Jesus christ this world is a dystopia.

Anxiety disorder, bipolar, and more will definitely help paint targets on you. I'm really not liking this brave new world we're heading into. This tech will only be as smart as the lowest bidder makes it and frankly that should terrify anyone with family who don't fit a stereotype defined as "normal". I have family that would need protection from something like this.

Re: Emotion-detecting tech should be restricted by law

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That we're even talking about restricting tech that tells us real things about the world indicates that society's internal contradictions on certain subjects have reached a breaking point and that we need to reevaluate certain previously-inviolable assumptions. I agree with your general point, but TFA quotes a co-founder of "leading research centre" saying, > "At the same time as these technologies are being rolled…

> large numbers of studies are showing that there is... no substantial evidence that people have this consistent relationship between the emotion that you are feeling and the way that your face looks. Total, absolute bullshit --- which is exactly what I'd expect from AI Now. Everyday experience shows that we can read people's feelings via their faces. (Yes, deception is possible, but the possibility of putting on a f…

> ...which is exactly what I'd expect from AI Now.

I don't know anything about them before today.

Did you see https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~arvindn/talks/MIT-STS-AI-snake... which they link to in their report? It seems pretty solid to me.

> Everyday experience shows that we can read people's feelings via their faces.

Yeah, humans can, sometimes, but that doesn't mean these systems can.

> Astrology doesn't work either and we don't have to go around banning that.

First off, astrology does work, depending on the astrologer.

Second, yes, if people were selling astrology to HR departments to screen candidates I think we should ban that.

Re: Emotion-detecting tech should be restricted by law

#39

So I guess with my anxiety disorder even computers will think “I have something to hide” because I look nervous. Jesus christ this world is a dystopia.

If it makes you feel any better, before computers it was the security guards that thought you had something to hide instead.

Re: Emotion-detecting tech should be restricted by law

#40
post #29
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Emotion-detection tech is a prosthetic for autistic people Never heard of it being used that way. Not sure how current tools would work for that. Examples?

AFAIK it is not yet used this way in practice, but I see no reason it couldn't be integrated into AR glasses. This would allow autistic people to interact socially on an equal footing with neurotypical people.

This sounds like a misunderstanding of the problems faced by autistic people.
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