Meta has filed a patent for a system that records your voice and surroundings all day, then uses an AI to analyse your mood. The patent’s stated, theoretical goal is for Meta, a company that makes billions of dollars targeting ads at its users based on their data, is to sell users a wearable that tailors workouts for them based on whether they’re happy or sad.

Patentlyze first noticed the patent which was published on July 2 after Meta filed it back in December of 2025. The filing described an “apparatus” that surveilled a user and their surroundings constantly to craft a better workout. “The audible communications may be associated with contextual factors such as time of day, location, user activity, or digital interaction,” the patent said. “The audible communications may be transcribed, and an emotional-state machine learning model may interpret verbal and nonverbal cues to determine emotional indicators.”

According to the filing, Meta needs to know when a user laughs or sighs, where they are physically, and what objects they’re surrounded by. It would even like to know when you’ve taken your meds. “The AI assistant may listen to a user(s) at predefined times to hear various types of communication, such as sighs, laughter, and/or the tone(s) of a voice(s),” the patent said. “The AI assistant may use these inputs to quantify the user’s emotional state or generate other insights about the user […] in another example, the AI assistant may take multiple inputs in in addition to audio inputs (e.g., of a user’s voice) to provide a summary of emotional trends based on various inputs (e.g., a happier emotional state associated with a particular time of day or at a time when medication is taken, etc.).”

  • unmagical@lemmy.ml
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    1 day ago

    Does that really need AI? The world is dystopian af, can’t it just declaratively assert “you are sad” and be right just about as often as some expensive inference operation?

    • Manjushri@piefed.social
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      9 hours ago

      No. In fact, I suspect that the whole health aspect is just a cover for their desire to surveil people all day every day. They will monitor all their interactions (including conversations with other people) and use all that data to one, train their AI, and two, improve marketing profits.

      I am willing to bet that at some point a version of this will end up appearing in the assorted Meta apps that are pre-installed on many people’s phones and be accidentally turned on by default.

      • unmagical@lemmy.ml
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        1 day ago

        My argument was one of stochasticism. A broken clock is right twice a day, but a machine that says to 100% of FB users “you aren’t happy” will be right more often than not.