The WSJ published an “explainer” on visual facial recognition technology recently.

They’re to be commended on the clear wording of their intro, and policy on personal/biometric info…

As most people who have known me for any length of time will tell you, unless I’m actively laughing or smiling, most of the time my face looks like I want to murder you.

While this may have had unintended benefits for me in the past – say in negotiations, college crits or design reviews – the advent of pervasive facial recognition and in particular ’emotion detection’ may change that.

“Affective computing” has been around as an academic research topic for decades of course, but as with much in machine intelligence now it’s fast, cheap and going to be everywhere.

I wonder.

How many unintended micro-aggressions will I perpetrate against the machines? What essential-oil mood enhancers will mysteriously be recommended to me? Will my car refuse to let me take manual control?

Perhaps I’ll tell the machines what Joss Weedon/Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk divulges as the source of his powers:

“That’s my secret, Captain. I’m always angry.”