The Implications of Emotional AI in the Legal World
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been shaking in the tech world for a while now. People also progressively explore what more it can do. Emotional AI, also known as affective computing or artificial emotional intelligence, is one example. It allows machines to detect people’s feelings.
Law enforcement agencies are starting to use AI to detect and prevent crimes. What might the legal implications be if they use the technology to analyze how people feel?
Some emotion-detecting AI applications are relatively harmless. In 2018, news broke of a system used in call centers that detected tired representatives or irate customers by analyzing their voices. It then provided workers with tips or motivation. It might encourage them to take a break or use a gentler tone.
More recently, a company began offering a system that uses emotional AI and other advanced technologies to evaluate customers’ engagement levels during sales calls. A professional could notice those shifts and adjust whenever a person seems excited or bored at different stages in a pitch.
Those examples don’t cover all the possibilities, though. Some law enforcement agencies apply AI as a crime-fighting measure. Suppose the algorithms make mistakes when identifying someone as a suspect. Then, the results could be life-changing, and not in a positive way.
The often-cited black box problem associated with AI refers to how we usually don’t know how algorithms reach conclusions. A person can’t work backward to see each factor that went into the eventual decision made by the machine.
That’s significant when using the technology to help decide whether someone committed a crime. If the AI helped incorrectly influence people who make judicial decisions, a wrongly accused person could go to prison without cause. In contrast, the harm is arguably minimal if emotional AI makes a mistake during a sales call.
Despite the potential issues, researchers are still interested in how emotional AI might lead to a safer future. A team at Incheon National University introduced a system that uses the 5G network and detects how people feel based on wireless signals and their body movements. The researchers noted that such an application could protect the public.
They gave an example of an emotionally unstable individual operating a car. They explained that the AI could pick up on that situation and send signals to nearby 5G towers so pedestrians are warned via their smart devices to avoid the area.
Similar applications may also prevent property theft or damage, such as if emotional AI was part of cameras that monitor streets. A smart camera might first detect that a person appears to be casing a neighborhood or business district. It could then pick up on certain emotions that indicate someone is dangerous. Then, it might rely on historic data to determine the likelihood of theft in the person’s location.
