Empowerment: a strategy to dealing with human values in affective interactive systems

Affective computing systems are potentially problematic from an ethical viewpoint as they aim to isolate, measure, interact with and influence our emotions. This means that they may infringe on values such as privacy or autonomy. We propose that an interactional perspective on the design of affective systems as well as on how to enable negotiations of privacy or autonomy is a viable route to better cater for these values. An interactional design perspective may make use of design elements such as open-ended, ambiguous, yet familiar, tools that users may use as a basis to make sense of their own emotions and their emotional interaction with one-another. With such tools, users are provided with power over their own data and the interpretation of it.