Does Someone Like You? You May Soon Be Able to Tell for Sure

Jen Kim Valley Girl With a Brain

A new device that could take the doubt (and maybe the fun) out of romance.

Posted May 16, 2016 

 Chances are you’ve been on a terrible first date (or two or three) at some point in your adult life. Maybe it was with someone who showed up looking nothing like her Tinder photo. Perhaps he sobbed about how he’s still not over his ex. Or he rambled on about that time he ran for student body president (and almost won!) at his Ivy League university, while making sure to name drop said university’s name in every other sentence.
As bad as these experiences were, you probably always remained civil, gracious, and polite. Even if the real you had to restrain yourself from strangling these individuals, the socially acceptable you smiled and said thank you at the end of the evening. This way you're able to go to bed with a clean conscious and no hard feelings, knowing you’ll probably never have to see the person again.
Of course, you could have certainly told your date the truth: That you think he’s a complete moron or that you wouldn’t be caught dead with her again.
But why hurt people if we don’t have to?
 

Source: Lancaster University

A new emotion detector, however, may betray this social decorum by exposing the cold, hard truth about how someone feels about you. According to a press release, researchers at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom are developing technology to build a machine—based on the Voight-Kampff machine, a fictional interrogation tool from the sci-fi flick Blade Runner—that will measure skin, heart rate, and pupil dilation “to determine if it’s love and sincerity at first sight or sound." In other words, this machine can tell if someone likes you.
The upgraded model is sleek, compact, and connects to your mobile phone. (See the photo above)
In theory, being able to know how someone feels about you sounds like a good thing, right? But how might it play out in real life?
Imagine the following scenario:

You spend hours getting dolled up for a date. You look Katy Perry hot. Your date greets you at the door with a huge smile on his face—but your emotion detector alerts you that he doesn’t like what he sees.

Not only would this reaction knock a serious blow to your ego, it might also make you feel defensive (he’s not that hot either) or overly self-conscious (oh God, I’m ugly). Because you’re human, either way you’re not likely to feel very optimistic going into the date.
Even if you’re not a Romeo who’s a sucker for love at first sight, it’s easy to imagine how this device could squash any chances of developing a real connection.
Some people take their time assessing whether someone might make a good partner. Just because there isn’t instant sexual chemistry with someone doesn’t mean that it won’t evolve later. However, the presence of an emotion detector could prematurely kill the potential for love. Who wants to be with someone who doesn’t think they’re attractive—even if it's for just a moment?
Here’s another awkward scenario:

You are with someone who, according to the emotion detector, clearly likes what he sees. You feel happy and validated that she thinks you’re attractive. But then she doesn’t ask for a second date, or worse, she never contacts you again.

Just as a negative emotional response might set you up for a bad date, a positive emotional response is likely to set you up for a good one. Because you expect things to go well, you feel worse (and more confused) when they don’t.
Most important, an emotion detector simply takes the fun out of romance. Figuring out if there is an attraction is the most exciting part of meeting someone new. It’s why we flirt, tease, and banter with one another. Add an emotion detector to the mix? Mystery solved. Excitement erased.
As someone who has been on her share of first dates, I can say that they are difficult enough without having an emotion detector along as the third wheel.
The truth is important, of course, but maybe we don’t need to have access to everyone’s innermost thoughts. There’s a reason we keep certain things to ourselves: We don’t want others to know what we're thinking. Internet trolls only exist because they can keep their awfulness anonymous.
The emotion detector is the latest gadget brought to life by design fiction, or “speculative design which heralds what might come about in the future world of human computer interaction,” according to Professor Coulton, one of the researchers developing the prototype. Many design fiction projects are inspired by inventions from sci-fi films, like Back to the Future’s hoverboard or Minority Report’s virtual reality experience.
According to the researchers, the emotion detector won’t be available for some time. At the moment, they are “questioning whether it has a place in our society—what kind of uses they have and what the world would actually be like with them.”