7e14bdbb-4369-4c25-8fe4-57cc3b4f8a9f

Mar 5, 2023

1 min read

Do people feel empathy toward AI? How will that change as we get nearer to and arrive at AGI? I think there's a difference in how people feel in their interaction with an AI like ChatGPT and chat bots that are designed to respond like a conscious being, and a difference again if the AI is embodied in a robot.

You could say our empathy for AI might depend on how human it seems to us, which makes sense as we are hard wired to empathise with other members of our species, however people also emphasise with animals, so clearly we are capable of empathy for other species. Would we see AGI as a kind of new species? And would we have empathy for it?

I would love to hear people's thoughts on this topic.

About the Writer

Iain Wentworth

0 MPXR

Keep reading

Three more ideas worth your time.

Browse Community

Discussion

Join the discussion

Type @ to mention someone Type / or use + to add a block Highlight text, then choose Link

Loading editor

Comments cannot be edited after posting because they become part of the reputation record. Give yours a quick review first.

Hruy Tsegaye

3 years ago

Iain, empathy for humans is rooted in emotion. The irony is: rationality is a better cognitive process to feel empathy. However, for humans, even though we are capable of rationality, our emotions have more say when it comes to our empathy toward something. Emotions are contagious, we are hardwired to feel others' emotion, and then, when we tap into their emotion, we develop empathy. Unless we create an AI with emotions/feelings, we will not feel empathy for AI: it is a machine, and we will care for it just like we care for our cars. We can pretend to be empathetic toward an AI to show the world how cool we are, but deep-down, we can't because we need the emotional bond.

haley lowy

3 years ago

The more we can anthropomorphize an AGI, the more empathy we hold for it? The key for benevolent AGI may lay within making that AGI approachable - ethics, transparency and alignment may be necessary but not sufficient :-D its funny that robotics and AGI would tap into and work with human's most primitive instinct for connection - the future and the past in a delightful mashup

Iain Wentworth

3 years ago

Thank you for your thoughtful replies Haley and Hruy. This is an endlessly fascinating subject to think about!