Introduction to Affective Computing

“The challenge of affective computing is formidable, and not without risk, but it stands to move technology in a radically different direction: towards embracing part of the spark that makes us truly human.”

— Picard, 1997

A personal story

• Question à passion à mission à obsession
• Unemotional, too rational/logical? Emotions are complex and hence intriguing to me.

The Big Areas

• Affect Detection
• Affect Generation

The Big Debates

• Definition: Can emotion be measured? Is emotion an inherently subjective experience? AND messy emotion theories give computer scientists troubles!!
• Implication: Ethical dilemmas
• Approach: some researchers call for more social science understanding, but some (majority) treat it as “just another ML application”. The minimalists are shouting, “throw in the data and AI will figure it out somehow, but I also don’t know how.” Should we focus solely on the technical?

Books, Journals, Conferences

Affective Computing (Picard, 1997): “The Bible of Affective Computing”

The Oxford Handbook of Affective Computing (Calvo, 2015)

IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing

AAAC, AAAI, IAAI, IJACSA, ICASSP, ICMI, UAI, NIPS…

People

Rosalind Picard (MIT Media Lab Director): the brave pioneer of AC

Jonathan Gratch (USC): the big boss of IEEE Trans on AC

Maja Pantic (Imperial, iBug Director)

Björn W. Schuller (Imperial, HUMAINE)

Louis-Philippe Morency (CMU, MultiComp Lab)

Bao-Liang Lu (Shanghai Jiaotong)

Bing Liu (UIUC)

Some exciting projects

• Affective robots providing treatment for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder:

http://de-enigma.eu

• Personalized Animated Movies:

https://www.fengjiaopeng.com/personalized-animated-movies

• Chatbot therapist: (had this idea too!)

https://woebot.io

What do you definitely need to do Affective Computing? (by order of importance)

• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Psychology

If you want to apply Affective Computing, you may also need:

• Physiology
• Linguistics
• Physics, specifically mechanics and electronics
• Neuroscience
• Philosophy, specifically philosophy of AI and ethics
• Art & Design
• Drama

The Future

• Wearable technology
• Clinical use
• Entertainment use