Data, AI & The Emotion Economy
Technology is reshaping how we evaluate, understand and respond to human behavior. Companies are developing tools to use brainwave monitoring to gauge customer reactions, government chatbots are being considered to handle citizen services, and organizations are creating and assigning detailed personality profiles from our ever expanding digital footprints.
Let's Explore
What happens when AI can not only analyze our digital footprint but also read our emotional responses? Here are three provocative future possibilities examining the collision of emotional data, artificial intelligence, and growing digital trails:
Emotion Data Markets - Companies emerge that specialize in collecting, analyzing, and selling aggregated emotional response data, creating a marketplace where our emotional reactions become valuable commodities for increasingly sophisticated chatbot. These digital advisors learn to deliver responses that trigger the desired emotion, exacerbating reality bubbles and isolationism.
Trust Divide - The combination of emotion-reading tech and personality profiling creates deep mistrust in government and corporate interactions, prompting people to seek out "tech-free" zones and services, leading to a parallel economy of human-only businesses.
The Realignment - As brainwave monitoring enables the identification of catalysts that lead to peak human creativity, organizations are incentivized to facilitate diverse forms of connection and individual expression, transforming workplaces. AI systems shift to help bridge gaps between different working styles while encouraging authenticity and connection. As expectations evolve, organizations and institutions begin measuring their "authenticity index" - an indicator of how effectively they nurture human connection and creative flow states.
But why?
Why do we look at a broad range of future possibilities? Considering multiple options enables us to:
Expand our innovative thinking and explore multiple perspectives
Develop nuanced strategies that account for various possibilities
Create flexible frameworks that can adapt to new and shifting realities
So what?
We can't predict exactly how these technologies will shape our future, but exploring alternatives allows us to actively participate in shaping the future by making informed decisions today.
Don’t like a potential outcome? Start paying attention and taking action to shift away from it.
Excited about a possibility? Consider what you can do to start moving towards that vision.