You know what they say right: the eyes are the window to the soul. Does the same hold true for human eye webcams? Or have AI researchers now gone too far? Video calls are stressful enough - with the home office becoming the norm, there are more opportunities than ever before to be invited to a surprise, last minute meeting. We have to scramble to make ourselves presentable, and hope we’re wearing a clean shirt...and pants. What could make all of this worse? If our meetings took place with realistic robot eye webcams: welcome to 2021.

Has Artificial Intelligence Gone Too Far?

Developed in Germany, "The Eyecam" was created with the goal of trying to restore the emotional connection many of us have been missing from in-person conversations the pandemic has made difficult to have. While many of us would welcome a device which did such a thing, the result is actually terrifying. Can’t artificial intelligence do any better? There are a lot of aspects to this device which makes it obvious it isn’t the answer to the emotional comfort so many of us crave at the moment. For one, it resembles a killer’s science project more than anything - this robotics device looks like a quarter slice of a person’s face. It also blinks and looks around your room. Not unsettling at all.

The Future of Human Eye Webcams

As of now, the Eyecam moves randomly, but could be linked to the user’s actual eye movements in the future. As the device is further developed to better capture feelings, the eye could shed a tear if the conversation turned emotional. Let’s just hope it doesn’t cry all over our expensive hardware, that would make anyone emotional.

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