Affective Computing – Is it the next big thing?
According to the Gartner’s Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies report, Affective computing is expected to reach its “plateau of productivity” (when mainstream adoption of technology starts to take off) in next 5-10 years.
In the beginning of 2016, Apple acquired Emotient – a startup which uses AI to detect and analyze facial expressions to read emotions – for an undisclosed amount. Early last year, Kairos, another startup which provides face recognition API for emotion detection and attention measurement acquired Imrsv, a startup which had developed real-time emotion recognition software that used web cameras on mobile devices for $2.7M. According to an SEC filing dated April 2016, Affectiva, a startup co-founded by the pioneer of affective computing, Dr. Rosalind Picard, raised another $4M, taking its total funding till date to $25.7M. Looking at these recent funding and acquisition activities, startups working on affective computing are likely to receive significant attention from tech giants in the future.
Affective computing is a branch of computer science (also involves psychology, and cognitive science) and has been gaining prominence in recent times. It aims to develop abilities in machines to detect or interpret emotional state of humans and adapt its behaviour in response to those emotions. In simple words, develop machines that can “feel”, understand “feelings” and respond to feelings. Recent developments in AI algorithms and sensor technology have enabled affective computing to become practically viable.
Affective Computing – Startup Landscape
| Affective Computing Companies | ||
| Company | Founded Year | Description |
| RealEyes | 2007 | Emotional analysis on the basis of automated facial coding |
| Affectiva | 2009 | Emotional state detection and analysis through facial expression recognition |
| nViso | 2009 | Emotion recognition solutions that use its proprietary 3D facial imaging |
| Emotional Imaging | 2009 | Technology developer for real-time emotion recognition |
| Emin | 2011 | Engine which to interpret facial expressions |
| Emotient (Acq. by Apple) | 2012 | Facial expression recognition and analysis |
| Kairos | 2012 | APIs for analysing facial features for emotion detection |
| Eyeris | 2012 | Emotion recognition software |
| Sension (Acq. by Gaia Sys.) | 2013 | Computer Vision to estimate the user’s engagement |
| SensauraTech | 2014 | Multimodal emotion recognition platform using physiological data from wearables |
| EntroPi | 2015 | Emotion recognition by gait analysis |
Affective computing has seen keen interest from VC, PE and corporate venture arms, including KPCB, Intel Capital, 500 Startups and WPP.
Affective computing – Possible Applications
- Advertising and Marketing – Emotion analysis to a piece of content provides insights as to whether the content was likeable or engaging, and whether it would drive consumer behavior towards targets like watching an ad to completion, or ultimately purchasing the product.
- Video Games – Changing gameplay with changing player emotions can enhance player engagement.
- Healthcare – Facial expression recognition can help understand emotions of autism patients and those who cannot explicitly convey their emotions.
- Education – Analysing a child’s emotions can be a good parameter in gauging his/her level of engagement, and thus enabling better learning process.
The goal of near-perfect “affective” machines might make a few communities a little apprehensive. One primary concern raised by them is that such machines could gain access to the emotional lives of people, which is highly personal and intimate information, causing serious privacy issues. For example, if advertisers detect that you are in a good mood, they could engineer a campaign where you are bombarded with various product advertisements.
Affective computing is still being considered as a nascent field and as of now, one can expect this field to show some significant developments in terms of both technology and also its application areas.
With inputs from Vijaya Bhaskara Rao D