Issue Emotional AI entering social infrastructure makes privacy and authenticity norms urgent

Summary

NTT DATA warns that emotional AI raises the stakes once it becomes part of social infrastructure rather than a feature of individual products. As such systems are built into services like care, education and public administration, the report says their ethical design can no longer wait. It calls for firm norms protecting privacy, ensuring authenticity and preserving human agency. The concern follows from the report's own description of machines that read gestures, tone and emotional states and respond in human-like ways. Without such norms, systems designed to build trust could instead enable manipulation or erode people's control over their emotional data. The issue connects to later scenarios in which regulators decide how affective signals and emotional influence should be treated.