AI Software That Analyzes Human Emotions Criticized By Researchers

These days, the rapid development of Artificial Intelligence has made people think about a lot of positive and negative impacts of this technology on human beings and their society. Discussing this topic, Reuters reports that a group of researchers is recommending a prohibition against facial expressions being automatically analyzed in employing and associated work for the fear of the harmful influence of AI.  

To exemplify for their conclusion, researchers took HireVue, a company and also an app that uses AI to evaluate the applicants for Hilton or Unilever through facial expressions, voice tone, and speech patterns. It is regarded as risky and unsafe AI for being complained to the U.S FTC by the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center.

In addition to this, AI Now, which is a research institute located in New York, has also stated that this screen hiring is totally unfair for the underprivileged groups because the app tends to prioritize the upper-class candidates. AI Now even claimed that modern science had not adopted this technology, and publicly objected to Amazon’s Rekognition software for similar reasons. 

In response to all of the allegations, spokeswoman Kim Paone of HireVue ensured that their app had been contributing to the removal of class distinction in the hiring process. However, there is no likelihood that the researchers will change their minds because of these flimsy excuses.

In fact, there are many more other AI scanning apps that have been under scrutiny owing to the concerns over their harmful effects on human beings. The names that receive huge attention should be Predictim which is an AI babysitter app and Image-Net Roulette, which is considered to be racist and disrespectful.