Amazon’s Echo May Be Able To Read Your Emotions - The Atlantic
▻https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/10/alexa-emotion-detection-ai-surveillance/572884
Amazon has patented technology that would allow its devices to read your emotional and physical state, and sell advertisements based on them. Are we entering the era of the mood-targeted ad?
Patents are not products, of course—but they can offer insight into how companies will approach emergent tech. In this case, the patent hints at new possibilities for dynamic targeted advertising in its always-on line of products. The patent lays out an example: Say you tell Alexa you’re hungry, and she can tell by the sniffle in your voice that you’re coming down with something. She can then ask if you want a recipe for chicken soup, or she can ask a question “associated with particular advertisers.” Perhaps Panera wants to tell you about its soups.
Amazon isn’t the only technology company to pursue technology that takes full advantage of these emotional windows. Google has a similar patent, for a method to augment devices to detect negative emotions then automatically suggest advice. IBM has one that would help search engines return web results based on the user’s “current emotional state.” Searching for “good podcasts,” “football,” or “events near me,” for example, would return different results based on user mood, as determined via face recognition in the webcam, a scan of the person’s heart rate or—and this is where the “patents are not products” disclaimer must be emphasized most heavily—the “user’s brain waves.”
Spotify, meanwhile, is already practicing a type of dynamic emotional targeting all its own. Starting in 2014, it began associating playlists with different moods and events, selling ad space to companies based on the associations. An Adele-centric playlist may be a dead giveaway for emotional turmoil, so products associated with sadness (ice cream, tissues) would be recommended. A hip-hop heavy playlist might come with a “block party” association, and Spotify would suggest the playlist for a company advertising barbecue sauce, and so on.
The purpose of profiling is to sell products. Each of us are made up of dozens of marketable categories. Dynamic emotional targeting ups the ante: Now we are a collection of categories both stable (gender, age, residence) and in flux (mental and emotional states), and our devices are eager to hear all about it.