Pay-per-laugh? This comedy club tracks your facial expressions to decide how much you pay

Facial recognition technology can be used for many ends, including tagging people in photos and ID-ing criminals. But what about detecting how funny you find a joke?

Designed to combat dwindling ticket sales, a Barcelona comedy club is trialling a new pay-per-laugh scheme that tracks your facial expressions to establish how hilarious you find the on-stage shenanigans. Each seat has a tablet attached to the back of it, which analyses your eyes and mouth for the merest suggestion of mirth.

As the BBC reports, for every laugh induced, you’ll pay €0.30 (about $0.40), though you’ll never pay more than €24 ($30). So the funnier the show, the more out of pocket you’ll be. Or, put another way, the more you enjoy the show, the more you pay.

➤ Comedy club charges per laugh with facial recognition [BBC]

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