Intel AI student emotion monitoring

Intel is collaborating with education start-up Classroom Technologies to develop an AI-based tool that integrates with Zoom to let teachers know their students' state of mind. 

Protocol reports that Intel claims its system can detect whether students are happy, sad, bored, distracted, or confused by assessing their facial expressions and how they’re interacting with educational content. 

Some teachers who have tested Intel's system in a physical classroom say the system is useful. Critics of affective computing, however, argue emotion recognition is notoriously inaccurate and often mistakes facial expresssions for real, underlying feelings. It also struggles across different cultures and scenarios.

Others are concerned about the intrusive nature of using cameras in an educational context, and in their potential for continual surveillance and misuse.

Classroom Technologies co-founder and CEO Michael Chasen told Protocol he hopes to partner with one of the colleges his company works with to evaluate Intel's system.