I passionately hate this. (Also, emotion detection is junk science, this is a WILD invasion of privacy, and I am looking forward to videos on how to locate and cover cameras and mess up mics.) https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/m7jpmp/car-companies-want-to-monitor-your-every-move-with-emotion-detecting-ai

Let's break down this article and the concept of in-your-car surveillance.

First, the arguments in favor of this tracking could be compelling to some people. Parents will love knowing if their teens are driving distracted, on phones, picking up friends, etc.

Insurance companies will definitely love the excuse of arguing that cameras saw you looking at the radio instead of the road before an accident or heard you in an argument right before a wreck. Distracted! No coverage! Not our fault!

(Whether owners of the car can view footage or track location will be interesting - I predict a lot of fights between couples about affairs revealed, etc.)

The emotion tracking argument is, in my mind, much weaker.

And not just because "emotion tracking" tech is notoriously inaccurate and doesn't factor for different emotional presentation across genders, cultures, ages, neurodivergent people, etc., EVEN WHEN IT "WORKS."

Even if emotion tracking tech worked, how do you apply it? If a camera detects "anger," is that at the road? Other drivers? A work situation? Remembering who got eliminated on Top Chef last night?

Successfully detecting an emotion doesn't tell you much.

In addition, there are no rules stating that you must be feeling happy or neutral to drive a car. What arguments do companies plan to make about the value of reading emotions in either drivers or passengers?

Which leads us to another question - what justification is there for tracking passengers? They aren't driving. They aren't liable. Why would you be tracking them OTHER than to use the information for behavioral advertising or surveillance?

Ok, no, sorry, must address this: can you imagine how much MORE angry you would get if your car "detected you were angry" and told you...what..."stop being angry?"

Is my car going to tell me I should smile more next? How can they possibly think this would help.

"We just built the bombs - we're not the ones who detonate them."

Cool.

(Yes, I know that's hyperbolic, but you can't build this thing that you KNOW is designed to be a mass surveillance system and then disclaim all responsibility about its use. You BUILT it. You can build use allowances into contracts, you just don't want to.)

This mass trove of who is in the car, where the car is, their mental state, visuals, audio, etc. will also be very attractive to police (duh) and restrictions on use would likely have to be built in to the systems to keep from this information being misused.

Thanks, I am filled with confidence.

Cool.

Tl;dnr - this is wide-spread surveillance based on junk science and the flimsiest pretense of it being anything other than a mass information grab, with no meaningful way to opt-out or control the information spread.

In other words: it is bad.