A $25 Billion Industry based on Emotion Recognition, Falls Short

Emotion recognition, the use of technology to analyze facial expressions and infer feelings, is set to be a $25 billion business by 2023. But it’s quite probable that machines can, in fact, not decipher emotions or feelings.

When our brain instinctively tries to figure out how someone is feeling, we actually use a lot of information: facial expressions, body language, where that person is, and more. But when computers try to do the same thing, they tend to focus only on the face. That’s a big flaw: according to an important new study, it suggests that most claims made by “emotion recognition” companies are wrong.