Mindshaping & AI Emotion Recognition: a Dilemma

Emotions-recognition technology is a developing field and is likely to become an incredibly lucrative industry. The premise behind this technology is that it will provide some objective ways to understand and access human emotions. Contrary to this, I show that the current debate around AI emotion recognition misses a crucial aspect of folk psychology, namely that it is predominantly a social practice through which we shape minds and behaviors. Once we recognize that, we face the following dilemma: either we conclude that AI is not in the business of recognizing emotions after all or, if we say it is, then AI assessments are not only not value-free but are in fact likely to reproduce social stereotypes and discrimination.