AI in the News — #27

Emotion recognition (TechXplore)

AI can now identify human emotions based on facial expression and voice. It can therefore be given instructions on how to react to those emotions — which it assuredly has never felt. But a clever script can make it seem like your AI companion is deeply sympathetic and understanding. Immediately pleasant, but is it ethical?

Kuri (TechXplore)
Example of the above: the Kuri domestic robot, designed to be short and chubby and express itself in chirps. Cute as all get out. Plays well with children.

(In Look to Windward by Iain M. Banks, two minor characters argue about the qualifications of the god-level AI, the Mind that runs the vast space station they live on. “It’s designed to care,” insists one. “It’s designed to act like it cares,” replies the other.)

AI and Big Data (New Scientist)

Therefore, AI vs privacy

The AI being deployed now doesn’t think organically or have internal representations of what it’s doing, but it’s very effective given vast amounts of data to do statistics on. Data from you and me.