Who Determines the Meaning of an Emotion? Affective Sovereignty as an Epistemic Consequence of Measurement Limits
arXiv:2606.31442v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Emotion-sensing AI is rapidly becoming embedded in vehicles, home appliances, dialogue agents, and social infrastructure, giving rise to a sphere in which emotion is no longer confined to individual experience but is instead observed and computed at a societal scale, a domain we term the Affectosphere. Yet a central normative question in this domain has remained underexplored: who has the final authority to determine the meaning of one's own emotion? This study addresses the question from the epistemological side of measurement's structural limit
The proliferation of emotion-sensing AI in everyday applications necessitates a deeper ethical and epistemic examination of who controls the interpretation of human emotion.
This development highlights a critical debate over individual autonomy versus algorithmic interpretation, impacting privacy, societal norms, and the future of human-AI interaction.
The rise of an 'Affectosphere' means emotional experience is no longer purely personal, but increasingly subject to algorithmic observation and computation, shifting the locus of emotional meaning-making.
- · AI ethics researchers
- · Regulatory bodies focused on AI
- · Individual privacy advocates
- · Unregulated AI developers
- · Companies exploiting emotional data
- · Individuals with limited data sovereignty
Increased public and academic discourse around the ethical implications of emotion-sensing AI.
Development of new legal frameworks and technical standards for 'affective sovereignty' and data rights.
Challenges to the philosophical understanding of emotion, potentially redefining human agency in a pervasive AI environment.
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Read at arXiv cs.AI