The Emotional Computer

Can your computer make you happy?

Researchers in the Affective Computing Group at the MIT Media Lab are trying to improve your computer by giving it emotions -- or rather, the ability to detect them. Plenty of people get mad at their computers. What if the computer could sense that, and respond by changing the way it worked?

"We're not talking about handing a global missile defence system over to a PC with a lot of feelings, but we are talking about improving the interface between humans and computers by making computers easier and more intuitive to interact with. For example, computers that sense when a user is getting frustrated could try a different way of explaining how to troubleshoot the internet connection. Cars that can tell when a driver is about to fall asleep could sound an alarm."

"The laboratory for Affective Computing at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology puts it like this: "Emotion is fundamental to human experience, influencing cognition, perception, and everyday tasks such as learning, communication, and even rational decision-making. However, technologists have largely ignored emotion and created an often-frustrating experience for people, in part because affect has been misunderstood and is hard to measure."

At some point in the future, will your computer get mad at you for the way you're acting? We'll have to wait and see.