Artificial Emotional Intelligence (AEI)

Sometime in October, one of the Foxy Data Science readers contacted me with a question/suggestion about this topic. As I hadn’t really thought about it much, I decided to look into it and write a blog post about it. I’m not an expert in AEI, but I believe I know enough about A.I. in general and about the business world to venture an insightful view on the matter. At the very least, it can trigger some interesting contemplation in you.
 
Artificial Emotional Intelligence is a kind of A.I. that emulates the EQ aspects of our mental process. In other words, it is machines that know (to some fairly limited extent) how to exhibit qualities that fall on the intersect between intelligence and emotional maturity, aka EQ. By the way, I do not believe that EQ is more important than IQ, nor that it is any less important. Both are equally useful and neither can be a substitute for SQ (moral intelligence), which is a truly superior kind of intelligence. This, however, could be the topic of another blog post…
 
Considering the possibility of computers and machines in general, emulating empathy and other traits that are under the EQ umbrella seems a bit futuristic. However, there are already A.I. systems that do just that. Not only that, some of them are quite successful, particularly in psychology roles, even more so than their human counterparts (link to some interesting research by USC).
 
Could this be the end of EQ-based professions? Probably not, though these people may start considering offering something more than just listening and nodding, if they are to stand out from their AEI competition. Naturally, psychology is so much more than helping someone vent about their issues and showing them that there are more constructive ways to dealing with their problems, something that AEIs may be able to do equally well. That’s why this whole AEI business may be an incentive for these professionals to expand their profession and turn their sessions into something more, something AEIs may not be able to mimic (for the time being). Art therapists, for example, seem to do just that, combining the benefits of conventional psychology with that of an art form (usually music, painting, or dance).
 
AEIs may be nothing more than a novelty now, but it very poignantly points to the possibility of new forms of A.I. that the original pioneers of the field may not have thought of. Movies like “Her” may be science fiction but for how long? These are interesting things to think about, since A.I. just like natural intelligence, can take many forms, not just the ones that we are more inclined to investigate so far. Surely Deep Learning may still be the most relevant A.I. for data science, but it doesn’t hurt to consider other ways that a machine can benefit the world through A.I. After all, there is much more to life than predicting a hand-written digit with high accuracy. Maybe in the years to come there will be AIs that can look at your handwriting and not only understand it, but also figure out if you are going through a difficult time in your life and require solace and comfort. We definitely live in interesting times!