Amazon is working on a gadget to read your emotional state

Just when you thought your voice assistants couldn’t get any creepier, Amazon is reportedly working on a wrist-worn, voice-activated gizmo that can read your emotional state.

The report, from Bloomberg, is a glimpse of a future where AI could steer our society, stating, “eventually the technology could be able to advise the wearer how to interact more effectively with others.”

Alexa, how am I feeling today?

Internal documents reviewed by Bloomberg refer to the new gadget a “health and wellness product.” How many more steps before Alexa is ordering Claritin or Ex-Lax for us, before we ask her to? I mean, I get irrational urges to buy that 55-gallon tub of lube but would Alexa actually convert that urge into a sale?

• It doesn’t take a genius to connect the (Echo) dots to see the eventual use of this tech – making Alexa seem more human.
• If we misread our own emotional states, can a machine do better?
• The emotion-reading tech could be used to add context to our requests to Alexa.
• The gadget is being worked on at Amazon’s skunkworks hardware division, Lab126, who previously created the Echo, the Fire Phone and the Kindle.
• With Lab126 also reportedly working on a robot for the home, is the future the Jetsons envisioned on the way?
• Machines/AIs able to read human emotional states (or lack of thereof) is one of the main tropes of the Sci-Fi genre.

Personally, I think someone in Amazon’s upper echelons has been watching Blade Runner just one time too many…

What do you think? Would you use a gadget like this or is it too eerie? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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