Nothing to Be Happy about: Consumer Emotions and AI

Abstract

Advancements in artificial intelligence and Big Data allow for a range of goods and services to determine and respond to a consumer’s emotional state of mind. Considerable potential surrounds the technological ability to detect and respond to an individual’s emotions, yet such technology is also controversial and raises questions surrounding the legal protection of emotions. Despite their highly sensitive and private nature, this article highlights the inadequate protection of emotions in aspects of data protection and consumer protection law, arguing that the contribution by recent proposal for an Artificial Intelligence Act is not only unsuitable to overcome such deficits but does little to support the assertion that emotions are highly sensitive.

The Good, the Bad, and the Invisible with Its Opportunity Costs: Introduction to the ‘J’ Special Issue on “the Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Law”

“…This Special Issue presents analyses that, therefore, are original for four reasons. Either they cast new light on classic discussions on legal reasoning and law and philosophy [74][75][76]; or they address the novelties of current legal frameworks and initiatives of policy makers [77,78]; or they further develop models of governance that should fit the challenges and opportunities brought forth by AI [79,80]; or they inspect how the interaction between different regulatory systems, e.g., ethics and the law, evolves due to the dynamics of technological innovation [81,82]. In addition, this introduction has insisted on problems that are either new because they are unprecedented, or new because they are mostly overlooked by scholars.…”

“…(ii) The papers of Mateja Durovic and Jonathon Watson [77], and Martin Ebers et al [78] on new legal regulations for AI; (iii) The papers of Pompeu Casanovas et al [79], and Rolf Weber [80] on models of legal governance; (iv) The papers of Francesco Sovrano et al [81] and Daniel Trusilo and Thomas Burri [82] on how the law relates to the norms of further regulatory systems, as in the case of ethics.…”

“…'Nothing to Be Happy about: Consumer Emotions and AI' is concerned with the technologies that are able to detect and to respond to individual emotions [77]. Durovic and Watson assess current regulations of data protection and consumer law, to stress that current legal protection of emotions is mostly non-existent, and the AI Act simply overlooks this threat.…”