In what might be Facebook’s most terrifying move yet, the tech giant recently acquired a facial recognition analysis startup company called FacioMetrics. This innovative company has developed the technology to recognise seven different emotions on people’s faces.

Featured Image VIA

As is the case with most startup acquisitions, Facebook will most likely take on the CEO and apply this technology to its own. As if it wasn’t enough that Facebook can successfully convert your information to target ads across many of the apps on your phone and can monitor pretty much everything you’re saying to your buddies online, soon it will be able to tell if you really are smiling about your friend getting engaged, or grimacing at your mum’s cringe post.

Image VIA

The startup that created the technology came from Carnegie Mellon University’s Human Sensing Laboratory. Its original branding was meant to be a tool that could help detect autism, measure audience engagement in public speaking scenarios and help end distracted driving.

However, clearly Facebook wanted to utilise this technology for themselves and has shown an interest in incorporating artificial intelligence functions to its software. This means that one day you could potentially react to a friend’s post with a real life sad, happy, or angry face. So basically, Facebook is making us the emojis. Welcome to the future everyone.

What next? If this is happening now, how far will Facebook take it in ten year’s time? Will we be living in an episode of ‘Black Mirror’, with a Facebook chip installed into our brains? Then again, we might not have to worry about any of that ever again if this study is anything to go by.