Emotion-reading technology

There was actually a Japanese anime cyberpunk series that came out in 2012, called "Psycho Pass" that used this as the basis for their futuristic society. In it, they had a bunch of massive AIs, required for the processing of vast amounts of biometric data, that kept constant tabs on all citizens of Japan. From birth, a child's psychological profile and physiological responses were calibrated, entered into a system, and then constantly monitored, with sensors set up throughout a city, much like surveillance cameras posts, or cellular phone broadcast towers.

All the citizens had to fall within a certain "safe" psychometric rating, otherwise known as the "Psycho Pass," and as long as they were in the green, they were considered productive members of society with nothing to worry about. But as certain traumas and stressors occurred, that psychological scarring, if it was severe enough, would push them towards the edge of the green and closer and closer to what was referred to as the "crime coefficient." If a person's psychological rating fell into that red zone, they were removed from society, usually permanently, as it seemed like most therapies while reducing the crime co-efficient, could never get them back into the green.

So basically, in the fiction of the series, it meant that no one could go anywhere or interact with any technology, without that technology being aware of what their Psycho-Pass rating was, and if they ran into something traumatic in the streets, such as witnessing a murder, sensors in the area would automatically detect, record and preserve any movement in their psychological metric. What the made the series interesting was the premise that a bunch of horrible serial killings occur within this seemingly fool-proof system that the system is unable to detect. And the human investigators that go on the hunt for criminals are, themselves, criminals, or at least, individuals diagnosed has having fallen out of the Crime Co-Efficient.

They'll probably have digital billboards advertising pharmaceuticals tailored to your mood. I'm not sure what kind of story could be made from that, though.

eruthford said:

This month I've been reading The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff, an excellent non-fiction book published this year about how tech giants render data. One of the things she says is coming in the "Internet of Things" that will come about with the spread of 5G services is devices that will monitor your facial expressions and determine your mood from that. And, if you're having a slow morning or feeling blue, The Internet of Things will then find ways of cheering you up because happy people make better consumers. And I thought, "And religion gets criticized for controlling people? Good heavens! This stuff is going to take away your right to your own personality."

It seems to me that a near-future science fiction book ought to be written about this, but I'm stuck at that point of the development. Can anyone here think of how this could make an interesting story?

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I took this from the library recently - I had to give it back before "finishing"; it's not a light read, but it is a fascinating -- and worrying -- one.

The bit about Google guaranteeing physical footfall for advertisers through Pokemon Go was an eye-opener.

And don't get me started on Facebook advertising based on supposedly private communications via text, email, even voice.

eruthford said:

Cool, I'll have to check them out. Which volume of the series did you like best? (I'm a little lazy and willing to jump in the middle if that's where the best stuff is.)

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I didn't actually read the manga, I watched the anime version of it when it was available on Netflix. It's not now, or at least, it isn't in Netflix Canada anymore. I think it may still be available on the Funimation streaming service.