Researchers at MIT Are Using Emoji to Teach Software Sarcasm and Slang

That's when an emoji steps in to fill the void and save the day. Whether you like it or not, emoji aren't going anywhere -- in fact, they've quickly become an alternate way to express an array of emotions. As a result, researchers at MIT's media lab have created DeepMoji, a Twitter-based deep learning algorithm that uses 1.2 billion tweets with emoji to predict the emotion being conveyed by the user via emoji. The researchers believe the more data the model can accumulate, the bigger the possibility of companies or chatbots using the algorithm. DeepMoji uses deep learning, a subset of machine learning that trains an algorithm to learn and decipher patterns by feeding it huge amounts of data.