Artificial Intelligence: Teaching Machines to Read Our Emotions

We are working to create computers that can do more and more. Computers can play us in games and win, translate any language, or correctly identify objects and places. We have even built robots that can walk and adjust to differing environments.

What about artificial intelligence and teaching machines how to recognize not only inanimate objects but how to identify emotion? By using neural networks to "teach" machines what various emotions look like, we are close to having computers that can identify several universally recognized emotions, such as happiness, anger, surprise, sadness, and disgust. Imagine the data that could come of being able to record a group's reaction to media, or the potential to stop crimes before they happen by monitoring suspicious behavior. The issue is, do we want to be constantly watched by machines?