The Future of AI: Artificial Empathy
A prominent fear regarding the emergence and use of artificial intelligence (AI) is that it will fundamentally change how humans interact: how we feel, experience, and communicate emotions. Despite how crucial empathy is for humans in order to establish meaningful connections and relationships, empathy seems to be dwindling. As technology and AI become increasingly popular, people interact less with each other and more with their screens; most meaningful experiences and emotional exchanges get replaced with fast online clicks and automated messages. Empathy is developed and learned through shared experiences and a sense of understanding emotions and a myriad of circumstances. The decrease in genuine, in-person experiences and encounters amongst humans is creating a decline in peoples’ capacity for empathy. In addition to peoples’ concern about losing such interactions due to the increased presence of technology in their lives, many speculate that AI itself will develop a sense of consciousness and that this will happen in the near future. If such a phenomenon is to occur, we need to consider the consequences of AI consciousness. Furthermore, we need to consider how an AI with consciousness would contribute to our society. We aren’t ready to give up all of the great benefits of AI, such as advancing scientific discovery, increasing technological efficiency, and overall improving our quality of life. So…
