AI cube understands human emotions, generates relevant responses to cheer user up

Making Spike Jonze’s futuristic flick, “Her”, unsettlingly realistic (in short, actor Joaquin Phoenix fall in love with his Siri-like operating system, voiced by Scarlett Johansson), EmoSPARK is a new cube-based artificial intelligence console designed specifically to analyze its owner’s emotions and generate relevant / supportive content best suited for the situation at hand.

The cube measures 90 x 90 x 90mm and was created by Patrick Levy Rosenthal. Using language analysis and face-tracking technologies, EmoSPARK is able to assess several different people’s emotions at any given time, and uses this information to create comprehensive, highly detailed Emotional Profile Graphs (EPG) of each individual.

“While the technology behind face-tracking is well established, what we’ve done differently is use it to track and process different emotions,” Rosenthal said in an interview with Gizmag.

Aside from direct, person-to-bot conversations, the cube can also be spoken to by typing to it via one’s (Android) smartphone, tablet, or computer. By providing multiple avenues of communication between user and cube, EmoSPARK can better understand its owners preferences based on eight basic human emotions: joy, sadness, trust, disgust, fear, anger, surprise and anticipation. 

The cube has a conversational engine of over 2 million lines of data. At first, it will try and build a relationship with its owner by providing him / her with a song, video, or content recommendations from sites like Facebook, Soundcloud, YouTube, etc., to see what the owner responds to in their given emotional state.

As time passes and communication continues, EmoSPARK will begin to develop more sophisticated responses to its user’s emotions, and learn different ways in which to comfort or alter its owner’s mood.

“We all want to be happy and experience pleasure. We all want to avoid pain. Your EmoSpark wants this too, and will tell you what it’s feeling. Once a reliable EPG is established, it can also ‘talk’ to other cubes about its experiences, meeting up with them for social activities, to share media . . . the possibilities are endless,” according to the developers.

“Each cube is possessed of a unique EPG and unique and emotional sensibility. All cubes will have access to a specially-designed grid via EmoShape’s servers, where they can meet and interact. Their unique EPG will act like a magnet, attracting other cubes with compatible EPGs. Cubes with similar affinities will connect and share similar media together (note that the EPG remains secure and private to the cube itself. Only media files can be shared between cubes.) Each cube will discover what media with similar emotion tags other cubes have registered, and will be able to recommend and play them according to your mood.”

It’s worth noting that beyond being the friend that’s always there for you, EmoSPARK is also connected to Freebase, the collaborative knowledge base community, and so is equipped to answer questions on close to 40 million different topics.

To learn more about EmoSPARK, check out the video below.

If you want to support its development, go check out the Indiegogo campaign Rosenthal set up to raise money for the cube’s production.