My teams at MIT and our spin-out companies have worked for years to create technology that is both intelligent and able to improve people's lives. Through research drawing from psychiatry, neuroscience, psychology, and affective computing, I have learned some surprising things. In some cases, they are principles we have embedded into technology that interacts with people. After one year of the COVID-19 pandemic, I realize that the principles we learned apply not only to making smart robots or software agents, but also to the people around us. They give us lessons for how to live happier lives, and happier engineers are better at solving creative problems and have more fun.

Psychologists say horses use a combination of facial expressions and voice tones to work out how people are feeling - and they can even do it with complete strangers. The study could help us develop a better relationship with the species, which humans have depended on for more than 5,500 years. According to the researchers, horses could even catch-up to dogs in terms of human emotional intelligence, if changes to training are made in response to the latest findings. It has been suggested that recognition of social signals such as emotions play an important role in how horses live and interact with humans. Unlike dogs, few studies have investigated horses' awareness of human emotions.