The future of emotions: Introduction to four visions

What if there was no interface between you and your lover’s emotions? No language, no visuals — a direct emotional tap between the two of you. Flirtbot is a product of the future that utilizes emerging technologies such as Emotional AI to close emotional gaps. It’s just one example of the four envisioned futures you’ll see in this series of six.

Each post presents a range of technology-positive and technology-suspect views on the future of emotions. I came up with them in Matthew Manos’ class on strategic foresight, part of CCA’s MBA in Design Strategy.

When not pursuing my MBA, I am the founder and creator of Lusty Letter, a positively naughty gift-giving company. My products are fueled by emotion, so I am interested in the convergence and interplay of emotions and technology. Because I’ve also been a strategic brand designer for two decades, creating new visions for the future takes my love of strategy to an entirely higher level.

And now; on with the emotional show!

Emotions influence every aspect of our lives. If you have humans present, you have emotions present. Sometimes you have too many emotions, sometimes you don’t have enough emotions.

We have various ways of managing our emotions to some degree. What if we could manage our emotions with precision and consistency?

Our view of emotions has changed over time and are frequently assigned to specific genders. Men used to be admired for their ability to not cry in heartbreaking situations. Now, men who express their grief and sadness are respected. In many cultures, women were valued for their submissiveness (this remains the standard in some cultures), but now women are encouraged to assert themselves, employing vigilance and interest. What might happen if emotions were designed by their user and removed from stereotypes?

Photo Credit: (cc) Kenneth Yeung — www.thelettertwo.com

To kick off the future of emotions, it’s helpful to know what emotions are. While we feel emotions day in and day out, it’s easy to forget how essential they are to human interaction. The

Affective Computing Team at MIT Media Lab, describes emotion as, “Fundamental to human experience, influencing cognition, perception, and everyday tasks such as learning, communication, and even rational decision-making.”

Emotions have been widely studied, yet “technologists have largely ignored emotion and created an often frustrating experience for people, in part because affect has been misunderstood and hard to measure.” As wearable sensors make emotions easier to quantify, technologists are looking at new ways to research them.

“There’s an enormous opportunity before us, as robots and algorithms push humans out of cognitive work. As a society, we could choose to put more resources into providing better staffing, higher pay and more time off for care workers who perform the most emotionally demanding work for the smallest wages. At the same time, we could transform other parts of the economy, helping police officers, post-office workers and the rest of us learn to really engage with the people in front of us.”

Before diving into the various scenarios, the next post will present trends and emerging issues to give context for what’s happening now and some of the technologies that will influence the future. These trends and issues give shape to the scenarios, for as we’ve seen: the future has many elements of the present coursing through it.