Emotions are measurable. For instance, Li Wenliang's Weibo message board has become a growing online tree hole ¹ , where new messages come in every minute addressed to no one and everyone. At the same time, an artificial intelligence system ² uses sentiment analysis data crawlers to monitor and label each message in real-time with a "pain index" and "suicide risk." If the "pain index" of a message exceeds twelve and the "suicide risk" is higher than five, the system activates an alert and a team of volunteers conducts a suicide intervention.

What are your pain index and suicide risk today?

A machine learning system developed by Michal Kosinski, an Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford University, can supposedly distinguish whether a person is introverted or extroverted using facial recognition³ . "Emotions are written on one's face" has taken on the most literal meaning.

Who will archive your personality and who will collect your joy, angst, or sadness?

As emotions or feelings are revealed and expressed on social networks, they are immediately transformed into circulating data. Data is the new crude oil for companies such as Cambridge Analytica⁴ , which mined, refined, classified, and labeled personal data. The clients of these companies use their services to "accurately target" their ads so that products or presidential candidates find the users who are most likely to pay/vote for them.

What you see most probably is what they want you to see. And your desire, followed by your action, is it even real?

By using search engines, chat apps, and e-shopping platforms, we are not only generating data but also training our own data. While caregiving and other forms of emotional labor are not yet widely recognized in society, our emotions are already discreetly driving the labor of algorithms. By tapping and swiping on our mobile phone, we are involuntarily involved in social production.

Please show your mental health QR code… Sorry, you've got a red code and your emotional indicator is off the chart. You have to self-quarantine for 14 days.