About Emotional Intelligence of Machines
Emotional Interface Ethicist and Head of Spaces UX at Google Sophie Kleber meets Maria Kolitsida, Neuro-Data Matchmaker and CEO of WinningMinds.ai. They talk about the relationships between humans and machines as well as the ethics of AI and emotions.
Movies sometimes leave us with more questions than answers. “Her” is definitely one of those movies. It tells the story of a man who falls in love with his artificially intelligent virtual assistant. The protagonist builds an emotional connection to a robot and the machine itself develops feelings — or simulates them. Is that our future? Humans, that create a deep bond with machines. And machines that can love us back?
Two women who both work at the nexus of emotions, humans and machines are Sophie Kleber and Maria Kolitsida. In the fifth episode of the Next Visions podcast by Porsche in cooperation with the House of Beautiful Business, they talk about questions that we will have to face in the near future and the fine line between AI as a tool, that makes our life better and how it could manipulate us.
Sophie argues for human agency to machines
An experience designer by trade, Sophie has followed the emotional development of automated assistants and artificial intelligence and applied the findings to her work with voice UIs and sentient computing. As a former Global Executive Creative Director at the experience agency Huge, she has looked into the future of human-computer interaction and found that when computers have personalities, humans are more likely to want to be their friends. Today, Sophie brings her empathetic approach to designing future work environments with the help of these friendships: in the form of user insights, people analytics, ambient computing, and spatial technology.
Born into a family of costume designers, conductors, and writers in Berlin, Sophie’s life has been infused with art, resilience, and responsibility since the start. Her caring and creative approach serves her well as she works to infuse emotion and ethics into innovative user interfaces.
„We’re generally not comfortable yet with having our emotions understood. That’s why it’s important to talk about it now“ — Sophie Kleber
She is convinced that technology is much further than many people believe: machines will soon be able to understand human emotions. Voice assistants like Google Home, Amazon Alexa or the Apple HomePod are learning more with every interaction. The development is so rapid that we sometimes feel overwhelmed, the danger of unconscious manipulation cannot be ruled out. She argues for clear rules in which people always keep their agency to the machine and always have to actively agree to what actions machines make. Both Sophie and Maria share the belief in the chances that come with technology, while they also see the risks.
„It is a very powerful tool. Not only for the good side, but also for manipulation“ Sophie Kleber
Maria helps leaders to make decisions with hearts and minds
Maria is the co-founder and CEO of WinningMinds.ai, an AI platform supporting business leaders in making investments in the right talent, teams, and customers. Moving away from five personality traits and idealized scenarios, Maria and her team are working on building their own datasets from scratch, taking into account real contexts, and the analysis of social and emotional intelligence of employees. Before founding her own business, Maria worked as an innovation and policymaker manager in global corporations including the Coca Cola Company, GSK, and McCormick, and held positions including co-founder and advisor in a number of tech startups. She also teaches Neuromarketing courses as an adjunct professor in various UK universities.
„Machines and AI still remain a tool. The questions are what we feed them and what we want to use them for“ Maria Kolitsida
Scaling up her previous work of designing employee performance training tools, she and her co-founder Dimi drew from their experience in innovative technology and neuroscience to build a machine-learning powered tool themselves. Maria is currently leading the research programs conducted by WinningMinds.ai in collaboration with universities and research institutes in Canada and Europe. The research covers the fields of neuroeconomics, behaviour analysis, neurolinguistics, embodied cognitive artificial intelligence, learning, and emotional psychology.
What emotional AI can be used for
Being experts in their fields Maria and Sophie also see the great chances of AI that can understand emotions. There are several fields in which emotional-intelligent AI can play a huge role and already does. It can identify depression, dementia and Alzheimer disease through voice analysis or increase safety at work. In education, the first software experiments have been conducted in which programs recognize frustration — and make the task easier or explain it in a new way. This means computers could individually address the strengths and weaknesses of a student and help right where help is needed.
The future is uncertain, but Maria and Sophie point out how important it is to deal with it today. Listen to their full conversation to get a feeling for possible future scenarios with emotional AI, the pitfalls and possibilities.
The podcast is available on all common podcast platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Deezer.
Episode #5 is the final of Season 1 of the Next Visions podcast. Check out the earlier episodes of the podcast: Galatasaray Managing Director Ebru Koksal and London Business School Professor Herminia Ibarra, who talk about radical career decisions and leadership in times of disruption as well as architect and conscious-city pioneer Itai Palti and the founder of Secret City Trails Kristina Palovicova sharing a new perspective on cities and how they influence us. In Episode #3 Creative Director and Co-Founder of the Nature 2.0 DAO Sovereign Nature Initiative Florian Schmitt and AI Ethicist John C. Havens talk about the importance of well-being and how AI. Episode #4 is a talk between Art Thinking pioneer and New York University Steinhardt Professor Amy Whitaker meets Massimo Portincaso, analytical visionary and managing director and partner at Boston Consulting Group. They talk about the ways in which art can help us to understand complexity and ambiguity in our world
