This revolutionary new book on using AI to process human emotion data seeks to raise awareness for the topic, thoroughly discuss it from a multidisciplinary perspective and, by doing so, disseminate research findings that elaborate on the current and future regulatory needs for the responsible and ethical development and application of emotional AI.
Biometric and psychological data of humans are the most sensitive data on human behavior. The book’s objective is to provide a holistic understanding of key challenges and propose novel, workable, substantive and methodological solutions for navigating current and future legal and ethical needs and dilemmas regarding the processes of developing and using emotional AI.
Although both the academic community and political decision-makers continue to intensively discuss issues in the ethical regulation of AI, there is still a very limited understanding of both the opportunities and the risks in connection with emotional AI specifically. Yet, emotional AI is one of the most promising areas of AI developments and applications. Several of these innovations could be a welcome change in our society, as they could improve our well-being in various ways.
That being said, these inventions require considerable investments. Thus, legal incentives such as IPRs are crucial to supporting investment in these fields. Further, these innovations might have negative effects on the privacy and autonomy of natural persons, raising both legal and ethical concerns. Thus, their legal and ethical acceptability, as well as their societal acceptance, might be challenged by several legal provisions in the EU, such as the GDPR; regulations on communications, social platforms, and marketing; and the draft AI Act. Yet, the current legal landscape for emotional AI in Europe is anything but clear – an aspect that becomes even more apparent when we consider the global picture of the regulatory framework for emotional AI.
In this book, a diverse team of internationally respected experts addresses these issues, engaging in a multidisciplinary study into techno-economic-legal developments concerning emotional AI, its impacts, and the need for action. The book offers in-depth scientific and societally relevant insights on the past, present and future of AI in general, especially its many implications for law and policy. Although the primary target audience for the book are academics from the field of law, the book also offers sound guidance for legislators and general policymakers, as well as companies and organizations.
Rosa Maria Ballardini (LL.M, PhD, title of Docent) is a professor of intellectual property law and vice dean (research) at the University of Lapland/Facultyof Law. Since 2005 she has researched and taught in the field of intellectual property (IP) law at various universities. Rosa’s research interests focus on the interface between law, technology and sustainability as well as ethics and empathy. She has led several inter-disciplinary research projects and written extensively on this intersection, especially in relation to patent and copyright law, open innovation and open source, as well as IP strategies and IP management in various technological contexts (e.g. software, 3D printing, Artificial Intelligence, industrial internet and digital cultural heritage). Her research approach is multidisciplinary, combining law, technology, business and policy via using different types of methodologies (e.g. traditional legal research methods, empirical methods and design thinking in legal studies). Rosa is also active in society, holding positions trust in several organizations related to intellectual property (e.g. Member of the Board of the Finnish Copyright Council, Chair of the Board of the IPR University Center).
Prof. Dr. Robert van den Hoven van Genderen is since 2019 professor of AI & Robotlaw at the University of Lapland (ULap) as professor of practice, from 2022 on prof. of research for the HIPE project on emotional data for ULap. He further was director of the Center for Law and Internet and Intellectual Property (CLI) of the law faculty of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (em. VU). He is also a visiting professor at Kyushu University in Japan and the National University of Taiwan (NTU). He is chairman of the Dutch Association for AI and Robot Law (NVAIR). He studied law and international relations at the University of Amsterdam and obtained his PhD at the Free University of Amsterdam in the field of privacy violations by governments by invasive technology. He lectured at the VU on media and communication law, privacy law, internet law and artificial intelligence and law (robot law), lectures at the Netherlands Governmental Academy of Lawmakers and has publishedseveral books and articles on mentioned topics. In the past he was a special adviser to the UN and the Council of Europe on privacy, Legal ex. Officer at a EU anti-terror and anti-money laundering project (Hemolia) and has worked for a long time in the telecom sector for the Netherlands Employers Organization(VNO-NCW) and as a board member of BT Nederland and Telfort, chairman of the legal working group of the GSMA, and CEO of SURF networks for higher education. In addition to his current scientific work, he is also a consulting partner of Switchlegal International Lawyers in Amsterdam and a former member of the editorial board of 'Computerrecht'. Since 2022 he is Member of a supervisory council in a Class Action on privacy breaks in Covid personal data against the State of the Netherlands.
Sari Järvinen, M.Sc. (Mathematics and Information Processing Science), is working at VTT since 1999, currently as a Senior Scientist and Project Manager (IPMA-C) in Human-centric AI team. Her expertise includes service and information system development, communication technologies and information management. In her current position, she is responsible of planning and leading multimodal data analytics projects for specific customer needs in various application domains. Her main research interest is in usage of real-time people behaviour information for creation of novel applications and interaction solutions. Recently, she is focusing on acquisition and utilization of human behaviour data to enable creation of new types of smart spaces with dynamic services capable of reacting to human behaviour and needs in real-time. The captured data can be used to measure e.g. the performance of a retail space, utilization rate of a shared office space or passenger experience in public transport. She has participated to several EU and EUREKA/ITEA framework projects including e.g. FP5-MTM, ITEA-CANDELA, ITEA2-ExpeShare, FP7-D-SenS, H2020-Starlight, ITEA3-InnoSale, HEU-tExtended, and to several national and commercial research projects. She is actively following and contributing to the academic research with a special interest in taking the research results to actual usage in the industry.
