Emotional AI and EdTech: Serving the Public Good?

Education Technology (EdTech) companies are deploying emotional AI to quantify social and emotional learning. Focusing on facial coding emotional AI that uses computer vision and algorithms to see, recognise, categorise and learn about facial expressions of emotion, this paper evaluates nascent usage of these technologies in education. To do this, it assesses the nature of child rights, the history and modern usage of face-based emotional AI, methodology and efficacy, and what this paper sees as a clash of private and public interests. Concern is shown to be two-fold: first is on method, especially given scope for material effects on students; second are ethical and legal concerns. While proposing a list of considerations for any implementation for these technologies in the classroom, the paper concludes that significant risks exist in deployment of these technologies in the classroom.