AI Is Learning How To Make You Cry At The Movies

In a blog post published in collaboration with strategic consulting firm McKinsey & Company, the researchers said that they used a deep neural network to watch thousands of small slices of video--movies, TV, and short online features. For each slice, the neural network guessed which were the different elements that made a moment emotionally special, constructing an emotional arc. To test their accuracy, the team got human volunteers to watch the same clips, tagging their reaction and labeling which elements--from the music to the dialogue to the type of imagery shown on screen–had a stronger weight in their emotional response. This information helped them fine-tune the resulting model until it got really accurate at guessing what triggers human emotions. So what does a machine learning model see when it watches the opening act of Pixar's Up!?