Abstract
Learning to better manage our emotions can have many benefits for us. It can help us improve relationships with others, strengthen our mental health, but also help us make better decisions and achieve set goals.
It can even reduce the risk of some mental illnesses such as depression and various anxiety disorders. The purpose of devices using affective computing capabilities is to provide personalized feedback and support to individuals based on their emotional state.
We can therefore imagine them in the position of mechanical assistants who will help us humans achieve better mental health and well-being. With sensors that can measure a wide range of physiological responses associated with emotions, such as heart rate, skin conductance and breathing patterns, and with the help of artificial intelligence algorithms, we can ensure continuous learning and adaptation to the emotional state of individual users, so that these devices would provide a personalized experience over time, feedback and support.
Overall, wearable devices with affective computing capabilities used as a permanent assistant could provide users with continuous monitoring of their emotional state and provide appropriate support. However, there are also significant social and ethical risks that need to be considered before their deployment, such as over-reliance on technology to manage emotions, the potential for AI to surpass human emotional intelligence, or the manipulation of emotions influencing human behavior and decision-making.
In my contribution, I will present current examples of devices using affective computing capabilities, the dilemmas that their developers and users have to deal with, as well as the possibilities of their further mass expansion.