Emotion Reading Doll

An AI chip can be used to read emotions.

21:03 21 June 2017

A new chip that uses artificial intelligent algorithms has been put in a doll and has been programmed to recognise emotions in facial images captured by a small camera. According to the researchers, the doll can effectively recognise eight emotions in total, including happiness and surprise.

 

Project leader Oscar Deniz at the University of Castilla-La Mancha in Ciudad Real, Spain, said: “In the near future, we will see a myriad of eyes everywhere that will not just be watching us, but trying to help us,”

 

Such advances in AI mean that certain algorithms are now available allowing devices to recognise objects, lip-read, and make basic decisions, among others.

 

“We will have wearable devices, toys, drones, small robots, and things we can’t even imagine yet that will all have basic artificial intelligence,” says Deniz.

 

Because Deniz’s chip does not need the Internet to function, it does not pose any privacy problems. Last year, a smart doll called My Friend Cayla attracted a lot of controversy because the conversations between children and the doll can be accessed by hackers. Privacy advocates also previously raised concerns over the Hello Barbie doll, which used speed recognition to interact with children’s requests. The problem was, just like My Friend Cayla doll, it also passed data to third-party servers for storage and processing.