One of the most significant failures of digital engineers who try to make automatic emotion detection software work is that they focus on individual human faces, using artificial intelligence to measure the shapes and angles in a lone person’s face, as if the patterns are a code for an emotion held within the skull of the person being scanned.
The problem with this approach is that often, emotions aren’t held just by one person. Often, emotions exist between people.
Such is the case with Mudita, the delight kindled by the witnessing of happiness in another person. The word is from Sanskrit and is an important concept in Buddhist thought.
When a person is feeling Mudita, their pleasure comes from the simple reflection of another person’s pleasure, without any tone of pride, ownership, or control. The classic illustrative example of mudita is of the joy an adult feels in watching a child play without restraint.
Mudita is a generous emotion, taking nothing and desiring nothing except for another person to continue their moment of bliss.
