It is being widely reported that Japanese supermarket chain AEON has adopted an #AI system in an attempt to assess and standardise its employees’ smiles.
The smile-gauging AI system, called ‘Mr Smile’ was developed by Japanese technology company InstaVR and evaluates over 450 elements of employee behavior, including facial expressions, voice volume, and tone of greetings (the announcement was also keen to point out that it has also been designed with ‘game’ elements that invite staff to improve their attitude by challenging their scores).
AEON has said that it has run a trial of the system in eight stores with about 3,400 staff members, and found service attitude improved by up to 1.6 times over a period of three months.
No surorise then that big concerns have been raised about the ethical implications of using technology to enforce ’emotional labor’, potentially infringing on employees’ rights to privacy and authentic self-expression in the workplace.
Follow DailyDOOH