“We can manage what we measure, but what we mainly measure are things like money or speed,” Nduka says. “What we can’t really measure is quality. And quality is about emotions. And emotions can be felt more sensitively with expressions.”
AI Vision
Humanity has long wondered if AI can really know how people feel, and most of the answers boil down to, well, probably not. Even without a ton of advanced cameras and artificial intelligence, reading emotions can be tricky.
“Measuring emotions through facial expressions is somewhat debatable,” says Andrew McStay, professor and director of the Emotional AI Lab at Bangor University in the United Kingdom. McStay says that even if the company was using AI to “smooth” the data collected by sensors to make it more usable, he’s not convinced it can actually read emotions accurately. “I just think it has fundamental flaws and problems.”
Cultural differences also inform how different people show their emotions. One person’s smile may mean sympathy or joy, while others may be a nervous expression of fear. That type of signaling can vary widely from one culture to another. How emotions register on the face can also fluctuate depending on neurodivergence, although Emteq says it wants to help neurodivergent users navigate those types of awkward social interactions.
Strand says Emteq is trying to take all of these factors into account, hence the search for more and more data. Emteq also insists that its use cases will be fully vetted and monitored by healthcare providers or professionals. The idea is that therapists, doctors or dietary advisors will use the technology to ensure that all the data they collect directly from your face is not used for nefarious purposes.
“You have to take into account how the information is delivered, and that is why we have experts on top of it. At least now,” Strand says. “The data is valuable anyway because it allows the person doing the evaluation to give good advice. So it’s a question of what that advice is and what is appropriate for that person on their journey. On the mental health side, that’s especially important.”
Strand imagines therapy sessions in which, instead of a patient coming in and being encouraged to share details about stressful situations or moments of anxiety, the therapist might already have a reading of their emotional state over the past week and be able to Point out problem areas and ask questions about them.
Myopic
No matter how good Emteq’s smart glasses are, they’ll have to compete with the big guns who already sell wearable technology that offers much broader use cases. People may not be interested in showing off a pair of bulky glasses if all they can do is scan your face and look at your food. It’s not at all far-fetched to imagine these internal sensors being incorporated into something with more features, like Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses.
“This has always been the case with these types of products,” says McStay. “These things often start with health and then quickly become something much more marketing-oriented.”
