Knowing how someone is feeling, or reading the mood of a crowd at a political rally, just got a whole lot easier with SensUbot – a small drone that scans people with a multi-spectral camera.

The intelligent agent controlling the drone provides a real-time evaluation of your mood, sentiment towards a situation or proposal, or even your neural state. Are you bored, frustrated, angry, joyful or content? SensUbot can tell.

Now there’s no excuse for a public speaker to lose the crowd. A surreptitious glance at their smartwatch app will tell them how their talk is being received. If you’re trying to convince someone of your cause, sell them something, or just entertain, you’ll get instant, reliable feedback.

As for opinion polls, it’s no longer necessary to contact people and interview them. Just send a swarm of SensUbots to the mall, and see how the shoppers are reacting to display messages. Passively poll citizens while they’re watching news broadcasts, or meter their mood at a festival.

And for those anti-social elements on a watch list, put them under sensitivity surveillance. That way we’ll know when they are likely to act out, and we can prevent crime and disruption, even save lives.

Of course there will be backlash from the libertarians, claiming an invasion of privacy and Big Brother manipulation. But it’s good for business. And we don’t mind if people know how we feel. Or do we?