It might be hard to believe, but technology has evolved to such an extent that human emotions can now be read by emotion-sensing facial recognition software. This emotion recognition software is now being developed by major tech firms aiming to incorporate such software to get a deep insight into unfiltered, real, and raw emotional responses to predefined digital content only through webcams. This way, companies will be able to accurately determine how their consumers respond and react when they use their website or their application. By gathering the data, the firm will be able to improve the user experience.
What is facial emotion recognition?
Before moving on to the intricacies of this technology, one must have full knowledge of what facial emotional recognition is. Facial Emotional Recognition is the process by which raw and unfiltered human emotions can be directly read from facial expressions. This technology is becoming more accurate, and it is estimated that soon enough, this will eventually, in one way or the other, end up reading our minds. Emotional Artificial Intelligence is one such technology that is being used to complement this as well. The Emotional AI detects and monitors the emotions by actually learning what responses are most familiar to specific scenarios. It also quickly learns the unique meaning of each facial expression. This AI technology is fully equipped and capable of reading, repeating, interpreting, and responding to all human facial expressions to collect related data and information. The collected data further helps to apply the same learned knowledge and AI experience to the new information presented to it.
The facial recognition technology uses biometrics to identify facial features from any picture or video through the web or a smartphone camera. Facial recognition technology may be used for several purposes other than emotional sensing. So far, this technology has been used to verify personal identity, unlock smartphones, and access laptops and computers.
What are the benefits of facial emotion recognition?
Firms like Walmart have already started to look into the possibility of using facial emotion recognition. The company feels that by doing so, the company can gather data and analyze it in a way that improves customer satisfaction. Firms want to opt for this technology to basically find out what kind of mood does an average customer portray when he/she shops from their retail outlets.
What are the downsides of facial emotion recognition?
A number of challenges exist concerning this technology. The main negative is that this technology has exhibited the same kind of racial biases that other AI programs do, assigning more negativity to the emotions of black people. Even though this is unfortunate, this is indeed true. There are genuine issues concerning privacy concerns as well. Lastly, it has been studied that computers and smartphones are not yet as efficient in judging human moods based on the information they get.
Conclusion
Although there are obvious disadvantages to facial emotion recognition, many firms are looking to exploit this technology to make sure they can improve their efficiency and profitability in the long run.