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Adapted from Dr. Orloff’s book, The Genius of Empathy, with Foreword by the Dalai Lama
A recent Wall Street Journal article reported that artificial intelligence is getting smart enough to express empathy. Some, however, have raised ethical questions about whether AI, which “lacks remorse and a sense of responsibility,” should be programmed to evaluate empathy in humans.
A number of companies are now using AI to measure empathy in customer service interactions, while several medical professionals employ it to generate appropriately caring responses to patients. But while AI can “say” empathic things like, “I’m sorry you feel bad today,” or “Sounds like work has really taken a toll this past week,” it is a programmed script.
AI programmed empathy is not a substitute for human companionship and a real friend with whom you can commiserate with about a sorrow, a challenge, or a frustration. Human beings exude empathy and loving energy that is continuous and has positive effects on health and well-being. Artificial empathy won’t keep you warm at night.
Says Jodi Halpern, professor of bioethics at the University of California, Berkeley and an authority on empathy and technology, AI’s responses based on data on which it has been trained differ from “emotional empathy,” or the capacity to internalize another person’s emotions and feel genuine concern. For example, in medical settings, “Empathy that’s most clinically valuable requires that the doctor experience something when they listen to a patient,” she says.
AI can never duplicate human empathy because the response is limited to a computer program. Consider how, what’s known as the Mother Teresa Effect whereby people watching an act of empathy can also experience an increase in their well-being, won’t happen as powerfully online as it will in person.
What’s more, AI programs intended to mimic a human interaction is disingenuous. Don’t those on the receiving end of, for example, an online therapy service, deserve to know that they are interacting with a bot instead of a caring human being?
Of further concern when using AI is its continued proneness to making factual errors — and even going off the rails. In one such instance, New York Times technology columnist Kevin Roose, while using an AI-powered chatbot within Microsoft’s Bing search engine, reported how it repeatedly urged him to leave his wife. As Roose was interacting with the chatbot, it “declared out of nowhere that it loved me and then tried to convince me that I was unhappy in my marriage and that I should leave my wife and be with it instead,” he says. Roose later wrote, “It’s now clear to me that in its current form, the AI that has been built into Bing… is not ready for human contact.”
As AI continues to encroach on our professional interactions, it’s important to keep in the forefront of your mind that you are dealing with a computer program — not a human being. AI, for all its potential value in streamlining services, will never be able to share the commonalities formed from shared human experiences of love, grief, elation, and more. It will always remain incapable of providing complex heart-felt empathy.
Sign up for Dr. Orloff’s online webinar about empathic healing techniques based on The Genius of Empathy on April 20, 2024 11AM-1PM PST HERE
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Judith Orloff, MD, is author of the new book, The Genius of Empathy: Practical Skills to Heal Your Sensitive Self, Your Relationships, and the World with Foreword by the Dalai Lama (Sounds True, April 9, 2024). Dr. Orloff is a member of the UCLA Psychiatric Clinical Faculty and a New York Times bestselling author. She’s a leading voice in the fields of medicine, psychiatry, empathy, and intuitive development. Her work has been featured on CNN, NPR, Talks at Google, TEDx, and the American Psychiatric Association. She has also appeared in USA Today; O, The Oprah Magazine; Scientific American; and The New England Journal of Medicine. She specializes in treating highly sensitive people in her private practice. Learn more at drjudithorloff.com. Find upcoming events here.
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