this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2026
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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.).”

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[–] echodot@feddit.uk 5 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

Oh that's useful. I've often wondered what my current emotion is, I'm so glad technology has been created to help me with this issue.

Now I'm going to know if I'm currently happy or not. Of course I haven't got the technology yet so I'm not sure how I feel about this. I'll let you know.

[–] HereIAm@lemmy.world 2 points 35 minutes ago

Like, sometimes these things would be quite useful for me. I'm someone who goes into fight or flight (often fight) when I receive a leas than positive email at work. Having something smart enough to interrupt me before I do something hasty and tell me to puss off for a couple of minutes first would be really useful. But a system like that can't ever live I'm the hands of someone I don't trust.

It's like immich. The idea of having an AI go through all your images and labeling them is something I usually balled at with google or meta, but when it's all local on my machine and I can turn it on or off at will makes all the difference.

[–] knightly@pawb.social 3 points 51 minutes ago

AuADHD here, took an embarassing amount of time to figure out you were being sarcastic. XD

Genuinely though, between the emotional processing delays the heights of intensity and complexity they can reach, there could actually be a notable benefit if there was a tool that could warn us about impending feelings before they actually hit.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 5 points 6 hours ago

ZUCKERBERGS journey to become HUMAN, because hes an android.

[–] fizzle@quokk.au 19 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

I reject the premise that you can determine someone's mood from their behavior.

Additionally, for someone who is actually depressed, having a device monitor you and prompt you with a tailored workout sounds like torture.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 3 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

It'll be worse than smart watches that tell you that you've been sat down for too long.

Yeah I've been sat down for too long, I'm at work you idiot device.

[–] JennyLaFae@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

I ditched the smart watch when it told me I was sitting for too long while I told it I was going to sleep

[–] Apocalypteroid@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

Sleep is for the lazy. You should go for a jog instead of sleeping.

[–] BassTurd@lemmy.world 7 points 13 hours ago

It wouldn't last a day.

[–] spittingimage@lemmy.world 31 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

The more I read about Meta, the more convinced I am the Epstein files contain video of an expressionless Zuck explaining to a woman that unless she chooses one of her children to die, they both do.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 5 points 5 hours ago

zuckerberg along with priscilla, thiel, musk ,bezos and other billionaires both sat a dinner with epstein.

[–] const_void@lemmy.ml 67 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

What kind of creepy engineers go to work for this company?

[–] unitedwithme@lemmy.today 33 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Very well paid ones... Until their core code and program are built, then they'll layoff 80%of that team and keep a few green devs to maintain the code until finally outsourcing.

[–] const_void@lemmy.ml 15 points 16 hours ago (3 children)

I guess money is all that matters anymore. No one has any scruples about building these creepy products.

[–] greyscale@lemmy.grey.ooo 2 points 6 hours ago

At least the evil empire is employing incompetent engineers making their evil jank hilarious to break.

[–] searabbit@piefed.social 17 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

A lot of these engineers get stuck in sisyphian goals where if they just work a little bit harder for a little bit longer they'll get the boulder over the hill and finally "make it." It's not about the money; it's the promise of early retirement and justifying the sacrifices they've made to get to this point in their careers. But yeah, part of the sacrifice is their morals.

[–] Zarobi@aussie.zone 3 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

That was me until my body finally gave out when I hit 30. Got flattened by the boulder and now I'm kicking rocks

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 4 points 9 hours ago

Sounds like the rocks kicked you.

[–] BassTurd@lemmy.world 4 points 13 hours ago

I've taken pay cuts to work at better jobs. Meta would have to offer me CEO money and a position where I could break shit "on accident". After the damage is done, I could ride my golden parachute back down to Earth and use thatoney for good, like fighting against Meta DCs and stuff.

[–] skvlp@lemmy.wtf 18 points 14 hours ago

Not sure I’d want any company to collect data like this about me. I’m very sure that Meta is a company that I really don’t want to know these things about me.

[–] TachyonTele_Esq@piefed.social 35 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

You've really got to be stupid to buy something like this, and especially from Facebook.

[–] OryxAndCake@slrpnk.net 11 points 17 hours ago

Bet you anything they're going to try to put it in phones, hell they probably already have.

[–] roguetrick@lemmy.world 24 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (1 children)

This is one trying to take my job as a nurse. All I can say is, it ain't gonna work. You're never going to get an AI to ensure med compliance in bipolar and schizophrenia or get it to properly do affect and mood assessments for psych nursing. Might be useful for less high acuity cases that don't require a nurse, but in those sort of outpatient cases the whole point is you don't need this level of monitoring. I applaud the effort in reducing group home need for this population as well, but I also think that would be ineffective.

[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 14 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

What will happen is they will sell it to your boss as a way to cut costs on labor, but will arrange things legally such that you are still responsible for the patients' wellbeing, so if the AI makes a mistake you get the blame.

[–] roguetrick@lemmy.world 14 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (1 children)

Nurses quit. Go to the reddit nursing sub and see how often they talk about quitting over dangers to their license. They get anxiety about nonsensical stuff regarding that because it's beaten to us in nursing school. This, nobody's going to accept.

[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 7 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

I hope so. Nurses have pretty good unions right?

I'm convinced that the only thing that will really save us from this sort of thing is labor organization.

[–] roguetrick@lemmy.world 4 points 11 hours ago

Less unions in this case and more since nursing is governed by Boards that come from the profession it's very hard to have regulatory capture from outside the profession. There's places with strong unions and they're great but that's far from universal. And no BON is going to accept this shit as standard of care which means you really might lose your license once some "monitored" manic person goes off their meds with nobody paying attention and drives in circles in a city naked without drinking water all while you're charting that they're monitored. And no nurse wants to lose the ability to practice for some shit ass employer.

[–] iMastari@lemmy.world 10 points 15 hours ago

THX-1138 comes to fruition.

[–] Anonymous_Leaker@lemmy.world 8 points 14 hours ago

That is very creepy!

[–] DarkCloud@lemmy.world 10 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

"Why has the economy slowed down? Why aren't people buying our new things?"

Dumb asses, absolute dumb asses.

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 9 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Delete Your Accounts Today

[–] TIEPilot@lemmy.world 3 points 16 hours ago

Already there my friend and have taken many more precaution as its getting worse and worse everyday.

[–] PierceTheBubble@lemmy.ml 4 points 14 hours ago
[–] unmagical@lemmy.ml 10 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

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?

[–] WanderingThoughts@europe.pub 6 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

It needs AI, but not LLM. A simple neural net for recognising expressions, what is still AI, runs on a phone.

[–] unmagical@lemmy.ml 3 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours 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.

[–] RaoulDook@lemmy.world 9 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

I think this is the microphone spies coming out in the open. Google recently filed some similar creepy tech patent if I recall correctly. It's the same scheme of recording all audio all day, and they would offer you a list of important things to remember or notes on the day.

I never believed in the past when the nay-sayers denied that them listening to our device's microphones all day was feasible. I'd already seen too many instances of the audio spying being used to direct ad content to people. They are voice-printing us all from every available audio source. They already know when you say something in the presence of someone else's phone.

People really have to break these chains of phone addiction, and just allowing them to do what they want on our phones.

[–] TachyonTele_Esq@piefed.social 2 points 14 hours ago

I just got a new phone, and they definitely are listening. Or at least reading your messages. Friend sent me a Spanish batman meme, and two hours later the phone suggested I read articles about it.

[–] BillyClark@piefed.social 3 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

Ignoring the main point of the article, there are a lot of people who need help taking their medication. A device that knows for sure whether they've taken their medication, and that will bug them to take it when they haven't, could make a huge difference in their quality of living.

[–] RaoulDook@lemmy.world 8 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

That much Big Brother spying activity is not necessary to achieve a similar goal. Combine a smart cap for pill bottles with an alarm reminder system. Smart pill bottle cap can show if the bottle has been opened that day or some such type of simple usage tracking. Alarm on the phone or watch, and/or something like that on their refrigerator for reminders.

[–] BillyClark@piefed.social 2 points 15 hours ago

Those things are all good ideas, and I have literally used all of those things for my mother, only to see that she will carry medicine around and then put it down mindlessly in strange places. One time, she even just held the medication in her mouth so long that a capsule dissolved in her mouth. Yes, she has dementia, but most of those things happened when her dementia was pretty mild.

[–] mx_smith@lemmy.world 2 points 15 hours ago

Is there going to be a new patent trend where we file a patent and say it’s like doing this thing but it’s done with AI so there isn’t prior art? Like how the patent trolls did with business process but done with software?