The EU AI Act will heavily affect innovation and commercialisation of Affective Computing in the EU. Despite talk of having measures to support innovation, the EU AI Act will seriously stifle innovation in this area, hitting in particular SMEs and startups hard. The act has been adopted by the EU, and is now being implemented by its member states. That means that very soon providers of Affective Computing and Emotion AI systems will have to comply with its stipulations in the EU. The act defines prohibited, high risk and low risk AI systems, with pretty onerous obligations for providers of high risk systems and relatively few obligations for low risk systems.

In 2006, British mathematician and entrepreneur Clive Humby coined the phrase “Data is the new oil”. This analogy has often been repeated since, including by myself. It’s not an analogy that stands up to a lot of scrutiny though. Sure, as with oil there’s big money involved, and controlling data gives you power similar to controlling oil, and as such it is worth putting thought and effort into.