How Are You Feeling Today?

Abstract

This piece of creative writing explores the possible impact of emotional artificial intelligence (EAI), a variety of technologies which have the common aim of inferring human emotion from outward expressions such as facial expressions, vocal patterns, text, and physiological data. It is difficult to determine exactly how EAI might affect people when thinking in the abstract. We therefore took a collaborative approach, combining the imagination and writing skills of a Sci-Fi writer, with the knowledge base of an academic studying EAI, in order to create a story which makes the potential consequences of EAI real in a tangible way. Some readers may have prior knowledge of EAI, and for you we hope this piece can offer new insights or different perspectives to consider. However, we suspect many readers will not have heard of EAI and be considering it here for the first time. For you, we hope to provide a story which you can truly immerse yourself in, which can act as a prompt for you to begin to consider your views on this technology. EAI may be at a relatively early stage of development, but we do not anticipate it being long before it is a widespread technology. Our prompt as writers was to create an imagined surveillance future. Our invitation to you as readers is to not only imagine it, but ponder it, live in it, question it, and, ultimately, shape it.