Affective computing is an interdisciplinary field spanning computer science, psychology, neurobiology and cognitive science. It encompasses the emotion recognition research being conducted in A.I. but isn’t one and the same.

Researchers at MIT are using electrodermal activity collected from our wearable computers (smart watches, fitness trackers) with machine learning algorithms that respond to our emotions, but biological data from other sources can be useful, too: our skin, our faces, and our DNA.

Analysts speculate that affective computing could become a $25 billion industry by 2023.