Trying to detect someones emotions is like playing the game "Clue", it's a mystery and very hard to figure out. But what if there was a software that allowed a chance to put the individual infront of a camera and the thought of guessing was no longer an option, because all the answers are sitting on the screen? Professor Thomas Huang from Beckman Institute has created such a software, a software that has the ability to calculate someone's emotions much like in math class. This new software can open doors for the future, and give us new advancements in the classroom, but could it be an end to simply asking if some is okay? Could this be the end to emotional privacy, or simply emotions?

The new software, the Facial Action Coding System, has many promising attributes and the ability to open new doors for technology and learning environements in the future. It being able to calculate emotions as easily as math problems, could help us decode a lot of the mystery that is the human mind. The process starts wiht a 3-D computer model of the face, and contains information of all the 44 major muscles in a human face and with the help of psychologists, it can classify six emotions and associate them with movements of facial muscles. This type of technology has the ability to be used in a classroom to watch when a student is getting bored or tired to help the teacher better themselves when teaching. Or maybe even help in real world situations when someone goes in front of a jury, or even during interviews for a job. But how accurate is this new software, and how do we know we can rely on it?

The Facial Action Coding System is seemly flawless with many positive outlooks on what is instore for us in the futrue, but has two big questions sitting on its shoulders. How can we rely on this system? And how do we know that this is even an accurate reading? When thinking about someones emotions, one thinks of the individuals emotions as diverse and extremely different from everyone elses. So how can this software accurately read individual emotions around the world? Dr. Huang says "even though individuals often show varying degrees of expression", he firmly believes that his new software can identify the most mixed emotions with the use of video imagery and emotion recognition. This however, still does not provide us with a good example of how we can be sure that this is a reliable way to read someones emotions and could potetially ruin human socialization and emotions toward one another.

While this new software may seem like the "next big thing", there are many ways that this could potentially ruin the human race. Society right now is circling around the phone, it is how we communicate, have a social life, and figure things out. It is in our way of life and we have adapted to the idea of constantly having a phone at our beck and call. So why not add in another way of relying on technology, but this one can help us figure out someones emotions, since simply asking "Are you okay?" is too hard and time consuming. Why not just stick them in front of a camera to have it tell them how they are feeling instead of trying to listen to how they feel and talking with one another. This new Facial Action Coding System has the ability to open many new doors, but it could close the door for human socialization.

The Facial Action Coding System is an advancement in technology and has the abilities to open and grow our future. It had the ability to help out in classroom environments and give more support during other real life situations. But with it can come the destruction of human socialization and emotions and make a total mess of how we interact with each other. While trying to figure out someones emotions is very difficult and challenging, it may be better to stick with such ways rather than completly giving up what makes us human and causing a catastrophe in the human world.