Emotional AI
The Rise of Empathic Media
- Andrew McStay - Bangor University, UK
What happens when media technologies are able to interpret our feelings, emotions, moods, and intentions? In this cutting edge new book, Andrew McStay explores that very question and argues that these abilities result in a form of technological empathy. Offering a balanced and incisive overview of the issues raised by ‘Emotional AI’, this book:
- Provides a clear account of the social benefits and drawbacks of new media trends and technologies such as emoji, wearables and chatbots
- Demonstrates through empirical research how ‘empathic media’ have been developed and introduced both by start-ups and global tech corporations such as Facebook
- Helps readers understand the potential implications on everyday life and social relations through examples such as video-gaming, facial coding, virtual reality and cities
- Calls for a more critical approach to the rollout of emotional AI in public and private spheres
Combining established theory with original analysis, this book will change the way students view, use and interact with new technologies. It should be required reading for students and researchers in media, communications, the social sciences and beyond.
Empathic media and technologies will shape future societies. This is a great book to jump-start your knowledge so you can have an educated opinion on how that future will look.
This thought-provoking, lucid, empirically rich book shows how technologies become sensitive to human emotions – and why we should care. Compulsory reading for students, researchers, technology developers and policy makers with feelings.
The entangling of digital media with human affect is one of the most transformative technological developments of our age. This book confirms Andrew McStay as one of the most insightful and empirically engaged scholars exploring this phenomenon.
