Sharjah24 - Reuters: Microsoft Corp on Tuesday said it would stop selling technology that guesses someone's emotion based on a facial image and would no longer provide unfettered access to facial recognition technology.
The actions reflect efforts by leading cloud providers to rein in sensitive technologies on their own as lawmakers in the United States and Europe continue to weigh comprehensive legal limits.
Since at least last year, Microsoft has been reviewing whether emotion recognition systems are rooted in science.
"These efforts raised important questions about privacy, the lack of consensus on a definition of 'emotions,' and the inability to generalize the linkage between facial expression and emotional state across use cases, regions, and demographics," Sarah Bird, principal group product manager at Microsoft's Azure AI unit, said in a blog post.
Existing customers will have one year before losing access to artificial intelligence tools that purport to infer emotion, gender, age, smile, facial hair, hair and makeup.
For an optimal experience, please
