15 - Regulating Emotional Artificial Intelligence in Cars

Summary

This chapter reflects on the emerging uses of Emotional Artificial Intelligence (EAI) Systems in cars and the future regulatory implications for human–machine interactions in vehicles. The car has sociocultural importance as an everyday context of technology deployment, and we begin by reflecting on the ways the automotive sector is changing to incorporate EAI more widely. This is primarily due to shifts in safety legislation, alongside advances in biometrics and vehicle automation. This change is creating hybrid environments of human/nonhuman interactions, where emotion sensing systems foster increasingly entangled relationships with humans and cars. These laws, such as the proposed EU Artificial Intelligence Act and EU Vehicle Safety Regulation, are driving design of more trustworthy, privacy preserving, and safe AI systems. We reflect on legal implications arising from sensing human in-cabin behaviors and expressions, alongside risks posed by AI systems. We conclude by reflecting on the challenges of designing for trustworthy, human-centered interactions.