Affectiva,
an artificial intelligence startup, has designed a program that uses image
recognition software to read and determine human emotion. Key points on the
human face reveal whether or not they are happy, sad, angry, or many other
emotions. The program is even able to determine real smiles from fake ones!
Affectiva
is changing how marketers gather data. Focus groups, surveys, and other
traditional market research methods are usually subject to some bias. By
reading the subject’s facial expression, marketers are able to get a much more
accurate understanding of their satisfaction levels.
For example, Hershey’s currently uses Affectiva to determine if
customers enjoy certain products. They give away free samples in a machine they
call the “smile sampler” and the machine determines how much recipients liked the
sample based on their facial expression. The results seem positive and they
plan to continue expanding their use of the program.
Emotionally
intelligent computers can be used for more than just marketing purposes. If companies
like Affective continue to develop this type of programming, a future where
robots responded to a person just like a good friend would, seems less like
science fiction and more like a reality. Imagine if your phone could tell you
were in a sad mood and played a song it knows makes you smile based off image
recognition technology. Or if your car recognized you were intoxicated and
would not start. Affectiva programming cannot do this as of yet, but this is
what they are building towards.
The future of
Affectiva seems bright, but they do face some issues. Privacy is a big
controversy. Do they have the right to gather customers’ facial data and
analyze it without their permission? Currently they are doing this, but their Vice
President of marketing says a subject’s facial information is deleted shortly
after it is analyzed to determine satisfaction levels. This is a reassuring
claim by Affectiva, however others who gain access to this technology may not
use it as responsibly and potential future legislation could restrict corporate
access to this type of consumer data. Also the article failed to mention how
accurate the program was. It is hard for me to believe it gets it right every
time.
From a business
standpoint Affectiva’s programs are fascinating and progressive. There are so
many industries where this type of information would be useful. If stores could
monitor customers emotions based via their security cameras, they would save a
great deal of money on customer surveys and other market research methods. From
a technological standpoint, emotionally inelegant computers could become more
common. Who knows? In the future maybe our robot pals won’t have to ask, “what’s
up?” because they’ll already know.
Works Cited
Darrow, Barb. "Pretty Soon Your Computer Will Know If You're Happy, Sad, or Mad." Fortune Computers Cant Read Your Mind Yet but Theyre Getting Closer Comments. Fortune, 11 Sept. 2015. Web. 09 Feb. 2016. <http://fortune.com/2015/09/11/affectiva-emotient-startups/>.
I am very interested in this idea of facial recognition being used to aid the business world, especially the marketing industry. I believe Affectiva's methods of using booths and providing free samples, and quickly analyzing the consumers reaction will have a great impact on how companies produce and distribute there products. As a marketing major this is especially interesting because new technology is always changing the ways in which products are pushed out to the consumers. Using Affectiva would personalize the consumer buying process even further, because the companies would instantly know how their customers react to certain products, and taylor individual marketing campaigns to each consumer. For example, I believe companies using Affectiva could analyze consumers reactions, and then supply their costumers with emails and promotions surrounding only those products which they had positive reactions to. However, I do believe the privacy aspect of this new technology will be the one aspect that will cause issues for Affectiva. I think they can solve this by creating a technology that blocks anyone from hacking into the system, and minting these security methods effectively. Overall, is used properly I believe Affectiva will be very beneficial to the business world.
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