The Lab at the 9th biennial Surveillance & Society 2022 conference

Friday afternoon saw members of the Lab present work at the 2022 Surveillance & Society conference. Andrew McStay provided an overview of the UK-Japan work, highlighting the speed of take-up by large corporations, diversity of applications, and key concerns. Peter Mantello presented work from the Japan side of the project on emotional AI in the workplace, noting attitudinal differences between the West and Japan in relation to dislike of being managed by algorithms. Diana Miranda then provided insight on the policing dimension of the project, opening by noting that the UK’s College of Policing report ‘Policing in England and Wales Future Operating Environment 2040’ sees that emotional AI will become more prominent. She finds however that officers are more skeptical, questioning methods and efficacy. Vian Bakir attended to social media and emotional AI in the here and now, discussing workshop work (with Alex Laffer) that made use of interactive storytelling to ground understanding of complex technologies (the Twine method). Lachlan Urquhart finally provided the legal backdrop assessing the draft EU AI Act and its many points of application to emotional AI.