AI/Machine Learning

Why we need a mindshift on AI and emotional data – and how startups will build a future of self-awareness

- October 31, 2024 3 MIN READ
inTruth founder Nicole Gibson presenting at Brisbane's Something Fest
Recently, Channel 10’s ‘The Project’ aired a segment on inTruth Technologies, the company I founded in 2021 to tackle one of the most significant challenges of our world today; self awareness and mental health.

inTruth is the first of its kind; a technology that can track emotion with clinical grade accuracy through consumer grade wearables.

We build software that restructures the data and translates the emotion. Our tech can integrate with any hardware that has a PPG sensor (most consumer wearables). The Project took a fear-based approach, presenting our work on emotions and AI as potentially invasive.

While this angle makes for a dramatic narrative, it misses a crucial point: inTruth was founded to offer solutions to the very real mental health crisis we are experiencing, not to add to it.

Right now, we face unprecedented rates of mental health challenges, including high suicide rates and pervasive feelings of isolation. We urgently need scalable, preventative tools, and emotional insight is key to making meaningful progress on these fronts. inTruth is a frontier in its field.

At inTruth, our mission is to empower people to understand and manage their emotional health.

Our technology is designed to place data ownership firmly in the hands of users, not corporations, fostering a culture where emotional insight is as natural and empowering as breathing.

We are far from a company that will sit, Mr Burns style, behind our dashboard and revel in employees surveilling their employees.

Our vision is one of empowerment and freedom, in a world where many currently feel polarised and trapped. This isn’t about surveillance or control—it’s about creating transparency, fostering self-mastery, and giving people the tools to proactively manage their well-being.

Unfortunately, the segment didn’t include the detailed points I made around decentralisation and data sovereignty, core principles that define inTruth’s approach. Instead, opinions were featured from “experts” who appeared out of touch with the real potential of this technology and the lengths we go to in protecting user autonomy.

Misrepresentation like this can fuel public fear, which ultimately risks pushing Australia’s top talent overseas to environments that are more open to innovation. This “brain drain” is a significant risk that we cannot afford, and as an Aussie – I want to see us thrive.

It’s also worth challenging the misconception—raised in the segment—that only large institutions can effectively protect data. In reality, it’s nimble, purpose-driven startups like ours that are leading the way in decentralisation and ethical data management.

Larger institutions often struggle to implement these principles with agility, while startups are pioneering solutions that prioritise user control and robust privacy safeguards.

With the rapid acceleration of AI, it’s clear this technology is here to stay. The question, then, is which companies do we want to support as consumers? Organisations committed to purpose and decentralisation—like inTruth—are the ones building a future worthy of trust.

inTruth app

The inTruth app

Our technology has unparalleled potential to transform lives by providing nuanced insight into emotions, which are often triggered unconsciously every 200 milliseconds and deeply impact our decisions and mental health. Without addressing these patterns, we cannot hope to tackle the broader challenges we face as a society. Emotion is driving 80% of all decisions we make, which remain largely unconscious to us.

This awareness can heal the considerable divide we see today in global conversations.

So yes, scrutiny is welcome, and I face it daily as a founder at the forefront of this work. I handle objections every day from media, funds and prospective partners. Just as all world-changing founders and companies have.

Uber, Spotify, Tesla all found themselves in this very position in the beginning. It’s something that must be embraced not backdown from.

I return to this question; what better alternative do we have to solve this crisis?

Without a path toward emotional maturity and self-regulation, that up-levels our capacity to handle unprecedented levels of power and intelligence responsibility and mindfully, the AI revolution could lead to a far more dystopian future than a world where emotional insight is understood, normalised and respected.

At inTruth, we’re here to meet this need, step by step, and we’re optimistic about the future we’re building.

And to those who doubt startups’ ability to safeguard data—simply because giants have struggled—just watch. In the coming years, purpose-driven innovators will set a new standard in data security and user trust, one that institutions will struggle to keep up with.

  • Nicole Gibson is a multi-award-winning social entrepreneur, and the founder, and CEO of inTruth Technologies.