> then the assumption of ability to hire or impact hiring is broader.
It is, but so what?
What I am suggesting is that using AI tools to fake empathy is worse than not being able to do empathy yourself. This should be evident.
If you have a task that requires significant empathy (a patient advocate, a customer advocate, a serious complaints line, anything with extensive exposure to the emotions of your customer) and you feel unable to do that (not everyone can), the ethical, responsible thing to do is to hire someone who does that job properly.
Professionalise caring. Don't just give the role to an AI that can fake it with a simulacrum of past human caring that it read on the (largely corporate) internet.
We are heading down a dark path if we pretend that automated fake empathy is acceptable.
Edit: and yes, people fake empathy all the time, they copy and paste it. Of course they do. But each time someone fakes empathy there is a glimmer of a chance that they will realise that it's a bad, inappropriate thing to do. There's a glimmer of a chance that they go back to their boss and say "you know, I feel bad brushing them off; what they are going through is real and awful and we should address this more personally".
AI empathy will never do that. And we should feel very, very nervous about using AI to deliver highly bespoke fake empathy to eliminate any guilt from that.
> What I am suggesting is that using AI tools to fake empathy is worse than not being able to do empathy yourself. This should be evident.
you miss the grain of truth in the advertisement.
in a high stress situation, someone may know how to describe the necessary words but be incapable of accessing them. this is not for lack of empathy. nor are the generated words some form of fake empathy.
is the right choice to read the output like a script to an audience? maybe not. but reading it to oneself could do wonders.
there are a lot of new possibilities, as long as the tool isn’t treated as magic or abused.
It is, but so what?
What I am suggesting is that using AI tools to fake empathy is worse than not being able to do empathy yourself. This should be evident.
If you have a task that requires significant empathy (a patient advocate, a customer advocate, a serious complaints line, anything with extensive exposure to the emotions of your customer) and you feel unable to do that (not everyone can), the ethical, responsible thing to do is to hire someone who does that job properly.
Professionalise caring. Don't just give the role to an AI that can fake it with a simulacrum of past human caring that it read on the (largely corporate) internet.
We are heading down a dark path if we pretend that automated fake empathy is acceptable.
Edit: and yes, people fake empathy all the time, they copy and paste it. Of course they do. But each time someone fakes empathy there is a glimmer of a chance that they will realise that it's a bad, inappropriate thing to do. There's a glimmer of a chance that they go back to their boss and say "you know, I feel bad brushing them off; what they are going through is real and awful and we should address this more personally".
AI empathy will never do that. And we should feel very, very nervous about using AI to deliver highly bespoke fake empathy to eliminate any guilt from that.