Exploring emotion-detection technology: A conversation with Ben Bland

Artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies are rapidly developing across virtually all sectors of the global economy. One nascent field is empathic technology, which, for better or worse, includes emotion detection. It is estimated that the emotion detection industry could be worth $56 billion by 2024. However, judging a person's emotional state is subjective and raises a host of privacy, fairness, and ethical questions. Ben Bland has worked in the empathic technology space in recent years and now chairs the IEEE's P7014 Working Group to develop a global standard for the ethics of empathic technology. We recently caught up to discuss the pros and cons of the technology and his work with IEEE.