Reading Faces examines the direct impact of past research on the development of AI systems; the way in which the past provides contexts which have predisposed people to accept outputs of AI systems as ‘common sense’; how the role of politics and the changing nature of the state have led to the introduction of AI systems and their precursors; how previous technologies led to the acceptance of the introduction of superficially similar AIs; and how the outputs – and biases, such as purported associations between race and criminality – of facial biometrics systems have been determined by the historical nature of the underlying datasets they analyze. Reading Faces approaches these issues within the sweep of Western History – how it has shaped conceptual categories about the application and ethics of AI, and tried to foist those ideas and values on the Global South.This chapter tells the story of the development of affect technologies, that purport to read emotions from facial expressions. The problematic nature of these technologies, especially in the absence of a consideration of the role of context, or intent, will be explored in terms of the theory of expressions as a means for souls to communicate with each other going back millennia but with important modification in Christian thought. Such beliefs can be seen in the foundational research underpinning modern affect AIs.