Even though we are social animals, managing relationships is not an easy task. Everyday interactions with people around us can become tricky as stress, anger, exhaustion, and other emotions start affecting the way we and others react to different situations. The inability to correctly “read” other people and understand how we should treat them causes disagreements and even fights. All these struggles have led to numerous investigations about humans’ interactions, resulting in the creation of a term researchers Peter Salavoy and John Mayer coined Emotional Intelligence (EQ or EI).
Recently, conversations about the relationship between EI and artificial intelligence have developed. Does artificial intelligence need emotions? Can developers even create A.I. with emotional intelligence? To answer these questions, we must first explore what EI really is and why it’s important.
What is Emotional Intelligence?
While EI was a term created by Salavoy and Mayer, the concept was later made popular by Dan Goleman in his 1996 book, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. In general terms, emotional intelligence can be explained as the ability to identify your emotions and understand what behavior they cause in you, and how people around you can be affected. It also includes the capacity to recognize others’ emotions, understand how they feel, and therefore manage your relationships in a better way. And the good news about it is that emotional intelligence is something you can learn and develop.
IQ versus EQ
It’s not uncommon to find academically brilliant individuals who have difficulties interacting with others. At the same time, the smartest people are not always the most successful or accomplished ones.
Intelligence quotient (IQ) used to be considered the only reliable measure to be used to assess human intelligence, but since the 1990s, emotional intelligence (EI) went from being a rarely known concept to an academically recognized term, one that is even taught in some schools in the United States. Many people wonder which one is more important (IQ or EI), but the truth is that even though IQ can translate into academic achievement and financial success, it is not the only determinant for success. Among other determinants, emotional intelligence has become so important, even in the business world, that there are some companies that use EI tests in their hiring processes in order to get the best and most stable candidates, and many companies recognize high emotional intelligence as a key factor that successful leaders should have in order to excel. So even though IQ is still an influential measure, it should be complemented with EQ; people with strong abilities in both areas are more likely to have a bright and accomplished future.
Why is Emotional Intelligence Important?
Emotional intelligence is very important in different areas of daily life, including health, relationships, and even performance at work. An article from a trusted guide to mental, emotional and social health discusses why emotional intelligence is so important and how it affects people’s lives in a variety of ways:
- Performance at work. EQ can help you better understand people around you, learn how to interact with each one of them, and even motivate them. This is helpful for those in sales, for managers, and even for daily interactions with work colleagues.
- Physical health. Our understanding of our emotions can help us correctly manage them, and not being able to manage stress, for example, can have direct repercussions for our physical health. Increased risk of heart attack, a speeded aging process, and higher blood pressure are just some of the physical consequences of stress. A way to start improving your EQ is learning how to identify and relieve tension.
- Mental health. Depression and anxiety are just some of the mental health results of not being able to understand and control your emotions. Having trouble identifying and managing emotions can create an obstacle for creating strong and stable relationships, which may lead to isolation or depression.
- Relationships. As soon as you are able to understand your emotions and control them, you are able to correctly express them to people around you, and you are better at learning how others feel, too. This translates into easier and more effective communication, and therefore better relationships.
Given all these reasons, it is clear why it is important for each of us to work on our emotional intelligence. When the concept of EI is extended to artificial intelligence, though, the issue gets hazier.
Why Does AI Need Emotions?
So, why is it that artificial intelligence needs emotional intelligence? Rana el Kaliouby, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy and Science Officer of Affectiva, a company whose mission is to bring emotional intelligence to the digital world so technology can be enriched, states that artificial intelligence systems are supposed to interact with humans; therefore, they need to have emotional intelligence.
Kaliouby describes some reasons why AI needs emotions. As these systems must communicate and interact with real people, it is necessary for them to be able to properly read people and understand their users and give them a suitable solution. She also argues that emotional intelligence is key for empathetic and ethical AI systems. Yet, this brings about concern regarding the ethical use of the information gathered from users, which must be properly handled in order to avoid problems.
Mixed Emotions Towards Artificial Intelligence
Not everyone supports the idea of having robots in our daily lives. Many fear they will take over and control us. Others argue it is not even possible for machines to have emotions as humans do. Luc de Brabandere, a mathematician and senior advisor at the Paris office of Boston Consulting Group, argues that artificial intelligence itself is simply not possible. He says the fact that machines can recognize faces does not mean they can find them beautiful. Also, a computer may have memory, but it won’t be able to remember. It could produce images, but that doesn’t mean it has an imagination. He states that the uniqueness of human intelligence relies on the fact that it can not be copied or reproduced. Sin Mei, Marketing director from Sentiance, a provider that offers real-time Ambient Intelligence, sides with Brabandere here and discusses emotions in more depth. She argues that understanding emotions is not the same as feeling them and also that programmed empathy is not the same as true empathy, so even though we are capable of creating Artificial Emotional Intelligence (AEI), it will never be the same as human emotional intelligence.
Additionally, many people fear machines will replace people. In some cases, that can be true, but with AEI, instead of substituting human roles, they can be more efficient and productive. One example of this is virtual nurses; they don’t really take the place of the real nurse or doctor, but they stay alongside the patient, scanning their feelings and emotions, and providing continuous and real-time data about the patient’s health and mood. This way, both doctors and nurses have more time to check on patients and patients receive better attention thanks to more available, updated information—not just for the patient’s medical status, but also his or her emotional state.
These are just some examples that show that even though it is barely possible for human emotions and reactions to be replicated in machines, up until now, they have come closer to their understanding and replication of human emotions, which is a big step on the way to improving our quality of life with the help of AI.
The Future of Artificial Emotional Intelligence
AEI is expected to revolutionize many areas of our lives, and there are all kinds of assumptions of what types of devices or programs could be developed. They range from ones that may seem absolutely impossible, to others that are actually being developed right now even though they sound crazy.
Technology magazine WIRED published an article on their predictions on 4 inventions of what they call “emotional technology”. These include a Mood Reader that will give executive summaries of the real feelings of a person, sparing us numerous fights and misunderstandings in our relationships; a Spouse Finder, which would be able to match us with our best available fit anywhere in the world; a portable self-knowledge life coach device by the name of Socrates that will push us to be the best of ourselves; and finally a Career Locator that will understand our true work potential, matching it with the requirements of the economy. All these devices are expected to be developed in the next 50 years or so, if we focus our efforts on the bigger sources of discontent: our emotional life.
In the travel industry, AI has also had some development in the last few years. Hitlist, for example, has the mission to help people travel more for less. The company’s CEO, Gillian Morris wants to help people travel more, and make their trips more efficient and enjoyable, providing the best prices, times and places to travel. Like Hitlist, many more companies are working to make the travel experience better, with more and more customization. Artificial Emotional Intelligence would be a great plus here, by recognizing people’s opinions and emotions regarding different destinations and activities, so that the AI can offer the most suitable travel plans for each person.
There is much potential for AEI in different industries, and even though it is not very likely that we will be able to reproduce humans’ emotional intelligence, getting machines to recognize emotions is a huge step towards providing better service and experiences for customers in a variety of industries.