Can Technology Read Your Emotions?

Earlier this year, Spotify received a U.S. patent for technology to read the emotions of people based on speech recognition and background sounds. That approval followed findings by Spotify researchers that the company could determine listeners' personality traits based on the music they enjoy. The possibility that a leading music service might target advertisements or recommend songs linked to a customer's sentiments in real time itself prompted some strong emotions. More than 100 musicians, including Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello, and groups such as Amnesty International signed an open protest to Spotify's CEO, Daniel Ek. "This recommendation technology is dangerous, a violation of privacy and other human rights, and should not be implemented by Spotify or any other company," the petition reads. "Monitoring emotional state, and making recommendations based on it, puts the entity that deploys the tech in a dangerous position of power in relation to a user."