Can machines truly understand human emotions? The Research Institute of the University of Bucharest (ICUB) invited Professor Peter Mantello to discuss the myths and realities behind the controversial concept of Emotional AI in the first episode of the “AI Spotlight” series.
As Peter Mantello explains, one of the main issues regarding how we relate to new technologies is that we automatically consider them objective. However, they are never truly neutral. Therefore, what we necessarily regard as a scientific revolution may, in many cases, be a rather illusory practice. In this sense, Professor Mantello draws an analogy with the 19th-century so-called “science” of phrenology. Considered, at the time, an objective method of decoding someone’s emotions, behavior, or personality by measuring the circumference of the skull, it eventually proved to be just another form of pseudoscience. As such, our guest explains, there is a possibility that artificial emotional intelligence might follow the same path—especially since, instead of measuring the outer circumference of the body, it aims to measure the most sensitive and intimate part of a person’s subjective being: their emotions.
Starting from these premises, we invited Professor Peter Mantello to speak to us about artificial emotional intelligence—what it is, where and how it is currently used—as well as the regulation of AI use, including within universities.
The first episode of the ICUB AI Spotlight series can be accessed with a click below.
- What is emotional artificial intelligence?
- Can really emotions be quantified?
- How does emotional AI reshape the interactions in the workplace?
- How is emotional AI used in the workplace in the present? Are there companies using it at this moment? And how?
- Which should be our your main concerns regarding the use of emotional AI in the workplace?
- Which are the connections between the new post-truth reality and the rise of AI technologies?
- How do we find a right balance in using AI?
- Can we regulate how to use AI? Do states do something in this regard nowadays?
- How much does the AI technology influence what is happening now in our universities?
- Are we ready to cope with the use of AI in universities?
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Peter Mantello offers nuanced and well-reasoned answers to all these questions in the first edition of the AI Spotlight series.
Peter Mantello is an artist, filmmaker and Professor of Media Studies at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University in Japan. Since 2010, he has been a principal investigator on various research projects examining the intersection between emerging media technologies, social media artifacts, artificially intelligent agents, hyperconsumerism and conflict. His recent research focuses on interdisciplinary inquiries into phenomenological aspects of human-machine relations, especially, those related to emotional AI. He is also working on a feature film that deals with social, political, and cultural concerns surrounding the rise of emotional AI on six continents. He was a visiting fellow at the Social Sciences Section of the Research Institute of the University of Bucharest (ICUB).
More information about Professor Peter Mantello can be accessed here and here.
The AI Spotlight series was initiated within AI4UB: The Initiative for Excellence in Artificial Intelligence, a permanent strategic program emphasizing education, research, and interdisciplinary collaboration in the field of AI, conducted by the Research Institute of the University of Bucharest (ICUB).
