What is Emotional Artificial Intelligence and how far are we from empathic and feeling machines? If computers and robots are going to interact

with humans in a way that makes humans feel a real connection, they will need to become more emotionally aware. We are entering the era of the digital assistant, with Alexa, Siri, Cortana, and Google Assistant, what will it take for these systems to be able to connect with us in a way that might make us want to be friends with them.

Dr Gary McKeown is a psychologist who works in the field of affective computing. This field seeks to develop machines that can recognise and synthesise human emotions and provide empathic interfaces that simulate real human interaction. Dr McKeown will discuss the progress that has been made and the obstacles that remain in the goal of creating machines that interact with us in the same way as other humans.