Interesting Ways that AI Can Pick Up on Human Emotion

by Emily Taylor

Artificial intelligence is seemingly taking over the world. Already so many people’s jobs have been replaced by technology and this is only going to continue happening even more so in the future unfortunately. When it comes to recognizing human emotion and interacting with people, this is now something that AI has the capacity to do. Already in industries like marketing and healthcare, as well as businesses with customer service departments, AI is becoming an important part of processes. This is due to the fact that it can now be implemented to interact with customers effectively. Here we are going to take a look at some of the ways that it can do so.

Text Communication

AI analyzing and understanding text communication is also called sentiment analysis or opinion mining. It works by learning patterns relating to human emotion and how that is then translated via text, whether it’s through a chatbot, emails, or reviews. AI can then be used to respond to queries or to retrieve data, to name a few examples. It can pick up on certain words, synonyms or language that crops up repeatedly to gain an overview on the data. This is linked to Natural Language Processing (NLP) in AI – to see variations in types of nlp techniques for sentiment analysis, click the link for further information.

Voices

Humans give a lot away with the spoken language they use, whether they mean to or not. When we speak aloud we have less time to think about what we say, so it is often more natural than textual communication. As well as this, the way humans say things also plays a huge part in revealing their feelings. Now, AI has been programmed to take this into account. These days, the most advanced AI technology can even recognize if people are exaggerating or using sarcasm. This is something that some humans sometimes struggle to do!

Facial Movement

A smile, a scowl, or a snigger… Our facial expressions tell the world a lot about how we are feeling. However, for this to work with AI, video technology needs to be in place and it has to produce a clear image of the person’s face so it can be read. Artificial intelligence has now advanced so much that it can even notice the smallest of changes in facial expressions – these microexpressions can tell you a lot about what a person may be thinking. This is useful when it comes to something like a job interview or criminal investigation, as humans can subconsciously display certain habits or facial movements if they are lying or not being genuine. Watch this space, as we predict AI is going to become much more commonly used over the next few years!

Whilst AI is sharper than ever before, it can still be challenged – some people are very reserved when it comes to showing emotion. Therefore, technology would struggle to pick up on how these people were feeling. However, more than ever artificial intelligence has gained an understanding of humans and how they do display emotion, even if subtle.

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