To understand the principles of Affective Computing, we must explore the foundational parts that Affective Computing is built on. In her book titled Affective Computing, Picard began to lay the foundational groundwork of what we call Affective computing [3]. Chapter one starts with defining concepts, definitions, and utilizing developed theories to develop an Affective Computing framework [3]. Before her work, many avoided the idea as it was complex, and at the time, many thought computers should be void of emotions as they were designed to complete tasks [1,2,3].

To implement affective computing ethically and humanly, we must explore the fundamental parts of human emotion. Through exploration and understanding of human emotion, we can begin applying affect to design. One thing that is understood, human emotion is vastly complex, and research is ever-evolving. From Picard’s initial framework, our understanding and capturing of human emotion have significantly evolved [1,2]. Today we can implement user devices and wearables to capture biometrics; from there, we can infer a user’s state of being with some accuracy [1,2].

However, one of the complexities involving affect is accurately capturing and using data ethically. Further, the primary and inescapable issue that continues to appear in affect computing research is not truly knowing what the user feels or experiences [1,2,3]. Affect is genuinely an individual experience; while we can make broad inferences about what we think the user is experiencing, we honestly can never know [1,2,3]. This is one of the challenges that has continued to appear in the research and development of applications that utilize affect. Brave et. al raised open-ended questions for designers and researchers to consider in their Emotion in Human-Computer Interaction chapter [1].

While affect is an individual experience, it is also shaped by culture, environment, and other elements out of our control. One of the significant challenges I foresee for affect computing is the continuous evolution of our understanding of affect with a rapidly changing society, cultural norms, and environment. Further, with growing concerns over privacy, what impact will this have on affective computing and implementation? How will designers and companies thread the needle of protecting user privacy and quietly implementing their software? For affective computing to impact, user buy-in is critical, and public opinion will need to remain favorable.

Resources

[1] Scott Brave and Clifford Nass. 2009. Emotion in Human–Computer Interaction. Human Factors and Ergonomics (March 2009), 53–68. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1201/b10368-6

[2] Daniel McDuff and Mary Czerwinski. 2018. Designing Emotionally Sentient Agents. Communications of the ACM, 73–83.

[3] Rosalind W Picard. 1997. Affective computing. Mit Press, Cop, Cambridge Mass. Etc.