The MODEM (Model Emotion) project connects human and hard-science researchers thinking about how to apply artificial intelligence to better understand the diversity of human emotion and wellbeing. Organized by cultural anthropologists Daniel White (University College London / University of Cambridge) and Hirofumi Katsuno (Doshisha University), it features the ongoing research of its members who are exploring intersections between the culture of emerging emotional robotics (primarily in Japan and the UK), scientific research on artificial intelligence, and evolving affective relationships between humans, robots, and other forms of organic and artificial life.​ MODEM explores these social changes through ethnographic fieldwork on human-robot interaction, participant observation in laboratories creating emotion modeling software and algorithms for use in affect-sensitive robots and wearable technologies, and through collaborative design projects between anthropologists, computer scientists, and robotics engineers thinking about how to build systems sensitive to the varieties of emotional experience fostered through human-machine interactions. 

AIMS