AI is learning to mimic empathy, but at what cost? Our increasing reliance on machines for comfort points to the growing absence of human connection.
Technology – and specifically artificial intelligence (AI) – will take away many of the jobs human being are currently doing… so we have been warned.
But, ominously, it seems as though digital creations which are able to “think” for themselves could soon start mimicking the one quality machines are not supposed to have: empathy.
That means they will start doing those very human things we once thought could only be done by humans, such as offering comfort, support and even love.
In China, there is a booming business for electronic “smart pets” to which lonely or insecure people are turning to ease their isolation.
These “pets” use AI to interact with people, sensing and adapting to their moods and offering more than inert companionship.
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One teen said her furry, cute robot plays the same role as human friends, adding: “It makes you feel you are someone who is needed.”
That statement is sad because it confirms the loss of human connectivity brought about in inverse proportion to the increase in tech connectivity.
Machines may have opened up the world to us through near-infinitive communication and information possibilities, but we now live behind screens.
These screens are the wall behind which we hide our essential humanity.
