4 Little Trees (4LT) student emotion recognition system prompts criticism

An AI programme that analyses students' emotions came under fire from researchers and digital rights activists fearful that emotion recognition technologies are intrusive, can be misused, and may be biased against people with darker skins.

Find Solution AI, the company behind 4 Little Trees, said its algorithm is 85% accurate and identifies happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, fear, and other emotions by analysing facial muscular micro-movements in real-time. 

Launched in 2017, 4 Little Trees proved successful, with the number of schools reputedly using the system growing from 34 to 83 during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

However, a February 2021 CNN report cited researchers and activists noting that emotion recognition technologies are often intrusive, can be misused, and may be biased against people with darker skins. They also struggle to identify more complex emotions such as enthusiasm or anxiety.

A May 2021 Financial Times article noted that research into emotion recognition systems suggested that while they might be able to decode facial expressions much of the time, what a person is really feeling or thinking, or what they plan to do next, may be quite different.