How much all-seeing AI surveillance is too much?

In this April 23, 2018, photo, Ashley McManus, global marketing director of the Boston-based artificial intelligence firm, Affectiva, demonstrates facial recognition technology that is geared to help detect driver distraction, at their offices in Boston. Recent advances in AI-powered computer vision have spawned startups like Affectiva, accelerated the race for self-driving cars and powered the increasingly sophisticated photo-tagging features found on Facebook and Google. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

BOSTON: When a CIA-backed venture capital fund took an interest in Rana el Kaliouby’s face-scanning technology for detecting emotions, the computer scientist and her colleagues did some soul-searching – and then turned down the money. 

“We’re not interested in applications where you’re spying on people,” said el Kaliouby, the CEO and co-founder of the Boston startup Affectiva. The company has trained its artificial intelligence systems to recognise if individuals are happy or sad, tired or angry, using a photographic repository of more than 6 million faces.