Artificial empathy

Artificial empathy or computational empathy is the development of AI systems—such as <a href="/facts/Companion_robot/mhzD4lg2">companion robots</a> or virtual agents—that can <a href="/facts/Emotion_detection/yWGzqfhz">detect emotions</a> and respond to them in an <a href="/facts/Empathy/Pak5Dvfh">empathic</a> way.
Although such technology can be perceived as scary or threatening, it could also have a significant advantage over humans for roles in which emotional expression can be important, such as in the health care sector. An April 2023 study found that <a href="/facts/ChatGPT/ptB1y6J5">ChatGPT</a>'s "bedside manners" were often rated as more empathic than those of doctors. Care-givers who perform emotional labor above and beyond the requirements of paid labor can experience chronic stress or burnout, and can become desensitized to patients. Artificial empathy could also help the socialization of care-givers, or serve as role model for emotional detachment.
A broader definition of artificial empathy is "the ability of nonhuman models to predict a person's internal state (e.g., cognitive, affective, physical) given the signals (s)he emits (e.g., facial expression, voice, gesture) or to predict a person's reaction (including, but not limited to internal states) when he or she is exposed to a given set of stimuli (e.g., facial expression, voice, gesture, graphics, music, etc.)".

Artificial empathy open-in-new

Artificial empathy