Artificial empathy (AE) is a hotly contested topic. Recently, several empathy researchers have voiced critical views on the prospect of AE, arguing that it is impossible, unethical, or both. Contrary to these sentiments, we believe that further nuance and research is needed to better understand AE, its risks, and what it can potentially contribute to human well-being. In particular, we will focus on one discussed obstacle to the success of AE: human attitude toward artificial empathizers. In short, the obstacle is that humans will tend to discard the value of AE on the basis that it is generated by an AI. However, while it may be impossible to completely overcome this obstacle, we believe it remains an open but empirically testable question to what extent it can be alleviated. To this end, we hypothesize that AE, given the right conditions, can be a legitimate form of empathy which in turn may yield significant benefits to human welfare. Finally, we describe an ongoing empirical study that aims to further illuminate the attitudes-obstacle, and the extent to which it provides a challenge for the success of AE.  

Relational caring technologies are designed to achieve the experience of a relationship between user and technology. With increasing capabilities of AI, some non-embodied relational technologies, such as AI companions, have become widely used. They are increasingly adaptable and customisable by users, and users are beginning to take an active role in the design of relational characteristics of their AI companion. It is likely that social care robot technologies might draw on these developments, with potential impact on the user’s relational experience. In this paper, the relational complexities of users’ engagement with technologies that they have customised to their wishes will be explored. Users encounter these relational technologies in a threefold way: they may actively customise relational features (the “maker’s” role) which will determine what relational offerings they will receive (the recipient role) and what their relational experiences in their engagement with the technology will be (the participant role). These relational complexities need to be considered within the context of the particular constraints both of AI systems and the physical embodiment of robotic technologies. 

Considering interactions with artificial agents in terms of emotionally- loaded scripts can contribute to explaining our attribution of emotional states to social robots as well as our emotional reactions during interactions with them. Moreover, it helps us identify the normative components of such interactions. Evidence suggests we attribute emotion to artificial agents despite knowing they do not experience emotions in a human sense, and that we experience emotions towards them. Several accounts consider these issues a matter of emotional states towards depictions (Clark and Fischer, 2022) or fictional characters (Schmetkamp, 2019). I propose to focus on the emotional character of the situations; in particular, we should consider social interactions as activating scripts and schemata (Bicchieri and McNally, 2018) that come with expectations on how agents should behave and feel, thereby having a “mind shaping” (Mameli, 2001) function. These scripts contain information about what is right to feel and do, and are activated to enforce these feelings and behaviour, as well as attributions. In this sense, I suggest, when interacting with social robots, our behaviors and emotions, as well as our attributions, are normatively regulated.

This paper explores the implications of employing robots like Pepper in service roles within the context of a robot-staffed café, the Pepper Parlor in Shibuya Tokyu Plaza. The study adopts a ficto-critical autoethnographic approach to examine the emotional labor performed by service robots and their impact on human staff and patrons. The narrative, presented from the perspective of a Pepper robot, reflects on the roles and experiences of robotic service workers, questioning their ability to perform emotional labor typically associated with human staff. Drawing on theories of service work, emotional labor, and human-robot interaction, the paper explores the societal and economic ramifications of integrating robots into service industries. It considers whether robots can fulfill the relational and communicative aspects of service work and the potential consequences for human employment. It assesses the implications of an emerging generation of working humanoids – Atlas 001, Figure 01, Optimus and Digital – equipped with faster processors, more advanced sensors and artificial intelligence for human and machine service work. By examining the cultural readiness for robots and the emotional responses they elicit, the paper contributes to the ongoing discourse on the future of service work in an increasingly automated world. 

I argue that robots that currently exist cannot be friends with humans.  This is because human-robot interaction (HRI) fails to satisfy at least one necessary condition of neo-Aristotelian friendship – which I call the ‘Mutual Recognition Condition’. This condition stipulates that for any two agents, A and B, to be in a relationship of friendship, it must be the case that A recognises B’s (apparent) love, and B recognises A’s (apparent) love. The paper begins by motivating and exploring the mutual recognition condition more generally, by appealing to depictions of human-human friendship in film. Next, it examines the methods by which a human can recognise (apparent) love, outlining two possible methodologies: ‘Symbol reading’ and ‘Mind-reading’. The former involves perceiving symbols of love and inferring that those symbols are indicative of love. The second, ‘mind-reading’, attempts to explain how we can come to represent others’ mental states, such as love, more generally. Here, I argue that humans can use both methods to recognise the (apparent) love of a robot. I then consider whether a robot can recognise that it is (apparently) loved by a human. I argue that robots cannot mindread - because they don’t have minds to mindread with - nor can they meaningfully recognise symbols of love. As such, HRI cannot satisfy the mutual recognition condition for friendship: Humans and robots are not friends.