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Comment by Zenst | Hacker News Reader

I would imagine that such a tool to infer emotional states would be most useful for autistic people who are as I can attest, somewhat handicapped upon that front. Maybe that will get challenged as disability discrimination by some Autistic group. Which would be interesting. As with most things, there are rules, and exceptions to those rules - no shoe fits everyone, though forcing people to wear the wrong shoe size, can do more harm than good.

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> I would imagine that such a tool to infer emotional states would be most useful for autistic people who are as I can attest, somewhat handicapped upon that front.

It might well be a useful tool to point at yourself.

It's an entirely inappropriate one to point at someone else. If you can't imagine having someone estimate your emotional state (usually incorrectly), and use that as a basis to disregard your opinion, you've lived a very different life to mine. Don't let them hide behind "the AI agreed with my assessment".

On the other hand, as someone who's emotional state is routinely incorrectly assessed by people, I can't imagine a worse hell than having that misassessment codified into an ai that I am required to interact with.

> I would imagine that such a tool to infer emotional states would be most useful for autistic people who are as I can attest, somewhat handicapped upon that front.

The regulation explicitly provides an exception for medical reasons:

    Article 5:
    
    1. The following AI practices shall be prohibited: 
    [...]
    (f) the placing on the market, the putting into service for this specific purpose, or the use of AI systems to infer emotions of a natural person in the areas of workplace and education institutions, except where the use of the AI system is intended to be put in place or into the market for medical or safety reasons;

I can definitely find you autistic people who would hate having such a device pointed at them, because they don't mask the ""correct"" emotional state well enough.

Was on about Autistic people being able to use it to understand the other person, not the other way around, which would be a nightmare for them, which sadly is what they get in real life anyhow already. Though might be useful to warn them that they are sending the wrong signals, so a mixed bag on that way around.

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