lystn

Computers can interpret the text we type, and they’re getting better at understanding the words we speak. But they’re only starting to understanding the emotions we feel—whether that means anger, amusement, boredom, distraction, or anything else. This week Harry talks with Rana El Kaliouby, the CEO of a Boston-based company called Affectiva that’s working to close that gap.

El Kaliouby and her former MIT colleague Rosalind Picard are the inventors of the field of emotion AI, also called affective computing. The main product at Affectiva, which Picard and El Kaliouby co-founded in 2009, is a media analytics system that uses computer vision and machine learning to help market researchers understand what kinds of emotions people feel when they view ads or entertainment content. But the company is also active in other areas such as safety technology for automobiles that can monitor a driver’s behavior and alert them if they seem distracted or drowsy. 

Ultimately, Kaliouby predicts, emotion AI will become an everyday part of human-machine interfaces. She says we’ll interact with our devices the same way we interact with each other — not just through words, but through our facial expressions and body language. And that could include all the devices that help track our physical health and mental health.

Rana El Kaliouby grew up in Egypt and Kuwait. She earned a BS and MS in computer science from the American University in Cairo and a PhD in computer science from the University of Cambridge in 2005, and was a postdoc at MIT from 2006 to 2010. In April 2020 she published Girl Decoded, a memoir about her mission to “humanize technology before it dehumanizes us.” She’s been recognized by the Fortune 40 Under 40 list, the Forbes America’s Top 50 Women in Tech list, and the Technology Review TR35 list, and she is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. 

Please rate and review The Harry Glorikian Show on Apple Podcasts! Here's how to do that from an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch:

1. Open the Podcasts app on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac.

2. Navigate to The Harry Glorikian Show podcast. You can find it by searching for it or selecting it from your library. Just note that you'll have to go to the series page which shows all the episodes, not just the page for a single episode.

3. Scroll down to find the subhead titled "Ratings & Reviews."

4. Under one of the highlighted reviews, select "Write a Review."

5. Next, select a star rating at the top — you have the option of choosing between one and five stars.

6. Using the text box at the top, write a title for your review. Then, in the lower text box, write your review. Your review can be up to 300 words long.

7. Once you've finished, select "Send" or "Save" in the top-right corner.

8. If you've never left a podcast review before, enter a nickname. Your nickname will be displayed next to any reviews you leave from here on out.

9. After selecting a nickname, tap OK. Your review may not be immediately visible.

That's it! Thanks so much.

TRANSCRIPT

Harry Glorikian: I’m Harry Glorikian, and this is MoneyBall Medicine, the interview podcast where we meet researchers, entrepreneurs, and physicians who are using the power of data to improve patient health and make healthcare delivery more efficient. You can think of each episode as a new chapter in the never-ending audio version of my 2017 book, “MoneyBall Medicine: Thriving in the New Data-Driven Healthcare Market.” If you like the show, please do us a favor and leave a rating and review at Apple Podcasts.

Many of us