An artificial intelligence that involves and plays with the emotions of the spectators can generate doubts and questions about the impact it can have on the psychology and mental health of those who undergo this experience.
Both Jos é Ramón Ubieto, clinical psychologist, psychoanalyst, UOC teaching collaborator and co-author of ¡Bienvenido Metaverso? Presence, body and avatars in the digital age, as Mireia Cabero, UOC professor and founder of Cultura Emocional agree that the technology industry maintains itself economically by capturing the attention of the user. As José Ramón Ubieto underlines, “the more innovative they are, the more they capture the customer’s attention, the more engaged and focused they are and, therefore, the more money they earn”.
In this sense, Emotional Films could have achieved the formula: “At a commercial level, at the level of maximum adaptation of the product to its target, it is a magnificent invention. They have come up with a way to adapt the product, not only externally, but they have achieved a link internally that seems brilliant to me”, remarks Mireia Cabero.
In this sense, Mónica Cortiñas, a researcher at the Public University of Navarra (UPNA) and head of Neuromarketing at Emotional Films, affirms that, in the tests they have carried out to see how viewers react to one of their films, they have been able to observe “a spectacular increase in all metrics, a 30% increase in the involvement of the activation signals and also of the memorization indicators, in addition to a great involvement and motivation on the part of the user. The interest was maintained throughout the experience, from beginning to end, and the viewer did not get lost or saturated.”
On the contrary, Ubieto is not very convinced that this can be considered an achievement, because “emotions are not a very precise indicator, they vary a lot, both between different people and in the same person. With which, pretending that the AI ??interprets for us the emotions that we are feeling taking into account nothing more than our facial expression, does not seem very reliable to me ”.
For her part, Mireia Cabero does not have such a negative view and believes that the technology developed by Emotional Films is an innovation that can bring great opportunities: “Emotional resources are lacking and this can be a great tool to educate society. May the person who goes through this experience not only have a good time, but at the same time have the opportunity to connect with what they feel and with what happens inside them”.
And although the ultimate goal of Emotional Films is focused on entertainment, Cabero believes that “it is wonderful that these artists make technology evolve, because they give us formulas to advance in other areas. Artificial intelligence must be put at the service of society ”, he concludes.
