What happens when media technologies are able to interpret our feelings, emotions, moods, and intentions? In this cutting edge new book, Andrew McStay explores that very question and argues that these abilities result in a form of technological empathy. Offering a balanced and incisive overview of the issues raised by ‘Emotional AI’, this book: Provides a clear account of the social benefits and drawbacks of new media trends and technologies such as emoji, wearables and chatbots Demonstrates through empirical research how ‘empathic media’ have been developed and introduced both by start-ups and global tech corporations such as Facebook Helps readers understand the potential implications on everyday life and social relations through examples such as video-gaming, facial coding, virtual reality and cities Calls for a more critical approach to the rollout of emotional AI in public and private spheres Combining established theory with original analysis, this book will change the way students view, use and interact with new technologies. It should be required reading for students and researchers in media, communications, the social sciences and beyond.

For Readers of Ray Kurzweil and Michio Kaku, a New Look at the Cutting Edge of Artificial Intelligence Imagine a robotic stuffed animal that can read and respond to a child’s emotional state, a commercial that can recognize and change based on a customer’s facial expression, or a company that can actually create feelings as though a person were experiencing them naturally. Heart of the Machine explores the next giant step in the relationship between humans and technology: the ability of computers to recognize, respond to, and even replicate emotions. Computers have long been integral to our lives, and their advances continue at an exponential rate. Many believe that artificial intelligence equal or superior to human intelligence will happen in the not-too-distance future; some even think machine consciousness will follow. Futurist Richard Yonck argues that emotion, the first, most basic, and most natural form of communication, is at the heart of how we will soon work with and use computers. Instilling emotions into computers is the next leap in our centuries-old obsession with creating machines that replicate humans. But for every benefit this progress may bring to our lives, there is a possible pitfall. Emotion recognition could lead to advanced surveillance, and the same technology that can manipulate our feelings could become a method of mass control. And, as shown in movies like Her and Ex Machina, our society already holds a deep-seated anxiety about what might happen if machines could actually feel and break free from our control. Heart of the Machine is an exploration of the new and inevitable ways in which mankind and technology will interact. The paperback edition has a new foreword by Rana el Kaliouby, PhD, a pioneer in artificial emotional intelligence, as well as the cofounder and CEO of Affectiva, the acclaimed AI startup spun off from the MIT Media Lab.

As machines are trained to “think,” many tasks that previously required human intelligence are becoming automated through artificial intelligence. However, it is more difficult to automate emotional intelligence, and this is where the human worker’s competitive advantage over machines currently lies. This book explores the impact of AI on everyday life, looking into workers’ adaptation to these changes, the ways in which managers can change the nature of jobs in light of AI developments, and the potential for humans and AI to continue working together. The book argues that AI is rapidly assuming a larger share of thinking tasks, leaving human intelligence to focus on feeling. The result is the “Feeling Economy,” in which both employees and consumers emphasize feeling to an unprecedented extent, with thinking tasks largely delegated to AI. The book shows both theoretical and empirical evidence that this shift is well underway. Further, it explores the effect of the Feeling Economy on our everyday lives in the areas such as shopping, politics, and education. Specifically, it argues that in this new economy, through empathy and people skills, women may gain an unprecedented degree of power and influence. This book will appeal to readers across disciplines interested in understanding the impact of AI on business and our daily lives. It represents a bold, potentially controversial attempt to gauge the direction in which society is heading.

This reference work examines how human thought processes and emotion can be captured by artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms and code. It provides a theoretical framework and demonstrates how code can be generate on the basis of the framework.

In this mind-expanding book, scientific pioneer Marvin Minsky continues his groundbreaking research, offering a fascinating new model for how our minds work. He argues persuasively that emotions, intuitions, and feelings are not distinct things, but different ways of thinking. By examining these different forms of mind activity, Minsky says, we can explain why our thought sometimes takes the form of carefully reasoned analysis and at other times turns to emotion. He shows how our minds progress from simple, instinctive kinds of thought to more complex forms, such as consciousness or self-awareness. And he argues that because we tend to see our thinking as fragmented, we fail to appreciate what powerful thinkers we really are. Indeed, says Minsky, if thinking can be understood as the step-by-step process that it is, then we can build machines -- artificial intelligences -- that not only can assist with our thinking by thinking as we do but have the potential to be as conscious as we are. Eloquently written, The Emotion Machine is an intriguing look into a future where more powerful artificial intelligences await.

Emotional AI and Human-AI Interactions in Social Networking makes readers aware of recent progress in this integrated discipline. Filling the existing vacuum in research in artificial intelligence with the application of social science, this book provides in-depth knowledge of human-AI interactions with social networking and increased use of the internet. Chapters integrating Emotional Artificial Intelligence, examining behavioral interventions, compassion, education, and healthcare, as well as social cognitive networking, including social brain networks, play a pivotal role in enhancing interdisciplinary studies in the field of social neuroscience and Emotional AI. This volume is a must for those wanting to dive into this exciting field of social neuroscience AI. Serves as a guide on social cognitive neuroscience for mental health and emotional AI for behavioral interventions Details various technologies of human-AI interactions with social networking Includes sections on emotional AI in behavioral interventions, compassion, education and healthcare

According to Rosalind Picard, if we want computers to be genuinely intelligent and to interact naturally with us, we must give computers the ability to recognize, understand, even to have and express emotions. The latest scientific findings indicate that emotions play an essential role in decision making, perception, learning, and more—that is, they influence the very mechanisms of rational thinking. Not only too much, but too little emotion can impair decision making. According to Rosalind Picard, if we want computers to be genuinely intelligent and to interact naturally with us, we must give computers the ability to recognize, understand, even to have and express emotions. Part 1 of this book provides the intellectual framework for affective computing. It includes background on human emotions, requirements for emotionally intelligent computers, applications of affective computing, and moral and social questions raised by the technology. Part 2 discusses the design and construction of affective computers. Although this material is more technical than that in Part 1, the author has kept it less technical than typical scientific publications in order to make it accessible to newcomers. Topics in Part 2 include signal-based representations of emotions, human affect recognition as a pattern recognition and learning problem, recent and ongoing efforts to build models of emotion for synthesizing emotions in computers, and the new application area of affective wearable computers.