Artificial Intelligence, Neuroscience and Emotional Data. What Role for Private Autonomy in the Digital Market?

Within the context of mass production, consumers represent a vulnerable category since they are the weaker contracting party due to the existing information asymmetry between companies and customers. Moreover, consumers suffer from new forms of vulnerability due to the combination of new technological phenomena – such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data – and the latest findings in neuroscience, which allows businesses to have a monopoly on the newly acquired knowledge on consumers’ purchase decision-making. This article aims at analysing the new technological trends in digital marketing that show the increasing role of ‘AI emotional marketing’ as a tool to access the inner and unconscious layers of consumers’ mind to redirect their economic choices. In this respect, the article will focus on the legal notion of ‘autonomy’ within the EU legislation on consumer protection and contract law, in order to investigate whether the current legal framework is well equipped to counteract the new form of algorithmic manipulation in the digital market.