It is one thing to speculate about potentially unpleasant uses of affective computing technology and another altogether to witness actual reactions to such systems. In order to have a better understanding of adversarial uses of affective computing I undertook the design of several experiments with the following properties:
use of live affective computing systems to communicate information related to emotion
empirical observation of adversarial situations
solicitation of participant opinions about the ethical implications of their experience with affective computing systems in adversarial situations
The majority of the research described in this thesis takes the form of a series of experiments designed to induce adversarial situations and to compare control conditions with treatment conditions that make use of systems that sense and transmit information related to emotion.
The primary hypothesis is that in a variety of situations participants who are using systems that sense and transmit information related to emotion will view the situation they are placed in as more unethical, invasive, uncomfortable, hindering, immoral, suspicious, and unfair when compared to a control. It is also hypothesized that participants will express a preference for systems without sensors and that those with sensors will not perform as well on tasks when compared to a control. To provide a variety of situations, three distinct circumstances are considered in the experiments. These include quiz-like situation, a job-interview situation, and a poker-like situation.