In the field of healthcare, emotional AI and affective computing technologies have a huge potential for improving patients’ quality of life as well as the efficiency of doctor and caregiver work. From the early days of affective computing research, there has been a strong focus on the detection of mental illness such as depression, bipolar disorders, mood disorders, epilepsy, autonomic nervous system disorders, etc. This is largely the legacy of the founder of affective computing, Rosalind Picard from MIT’s Media Lab, as her works primarily focus on real-time detecting of stress, frustration, or even suicidal thoughts. In 2013, Picard founded Empatica, which produces wearable, non-contact sensors and algorithms for health purposes. 

Another important application of emotional AI is companion and care robots, which are robots that take the shape of human or animal, and are able to interact with humans in-home or medical settings. These robots are said to be enlisted in the fight against social isolation and loneliness. As a response to various social problems of an aging population, Japanese corporations are now leading the race in producing companion robots.

For example, in 2015, Softbank introduced Pepper, a humanoid robot of the height of a schoolchild makes eye contact, dances the lambada, even cracks jokes. Importantly, it was marketed as capable of recognizing major human emotions, appropriately responding to human moods. Although Softbank will discontinue Pepper, in its heyday, the emotion sensing robot could be found in over a140 SoftBank Mobile stores in Japan. Today, legacy companies and savvy emo-tech start-ups are joining the burgeoning market in care robotics, making this field one of the most exciting commercial applications of Emotional AI.

Although there are many possible benefits of emotional AI in healthcare, the arrival of healthcare robots and mental illness detection wearables raises a series of challenging ethical issues such as a loss of privacy and personal liberty, a loss of control and autonomy, the potential reduction in the amount of human contact or an increase in the feelings of objectification.