From Emotion Recognition to Artificial Qualia

This chapter examines how emotion-sensitive artificial intelligence challenges the philosophical and ethical boundaries between cognition, feeling, and synthetic experience. As AI systems begin to recognize and simulate human emotion, they approach the domain of artificial qualia, the computational imitation of subjective experience. Focusing on digital and metaverse-based classrooms, the study explores how affective algorithms interpret biometric and behavioral data to adapt instruction, influence motivation, and reshape autonomy. Drawing from bioethics, educational psychology, and AI philosophy, the chapter analyzes real-world applications such as Smile to Learn, Affectiva, and iFLYTEK Smart Classroom to show how emotional datafication alters learning and identity. It argues that these technologies not only perform emotional reasoning but also construct the illusion of empathy, demanding new principles of moral responsibility and emotional governance in AI-mediated education.