Manufactured empathy: the next step in AI evolution

With the advance of in-home speaking technologies such as Echo / Alexa, as well as the unrelenting progress of artificial intelligence, the verbal interface between humans and computers has never been more important

Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another – which is seemingly a big ask for many humans, let alone an artificial intelligence. So, are there ways to systematise the process of empathy to deliver a ‘more human than human’ computer experience?

Read any advert for in-home artificial intelligence and you will be confronted with a list of ‘what’ the technology can do, rather than ‘how’ the computer-to-human interaction makes you feel.
“Control your smart home, play music, get information and more with the Amazon Echo #justask.”

Because, and let’s be honest here, voice computing is still in its infancy – whether from Amazon, Google or Apple. Irrespective of what the manufacturers may tell you, it is perhaps best to think of these products as prototypes for an emerging new reality, rather than finished technologies in their own right.

And as the technology improves, and the ability to process spoken requests becomes ever-more fluid, the issue of interaction-experience will become increasingly relevant for the entire sector: how to deliver, or at least manufacture, empathy between a computer and a human. This is surely the Holy Grail of AI: when it integrates with our humanity, not just our homes.

It is this work stream that could catapult the voice computing sector from useful enabler (ordering our shopping or playing our music), to genuine game-changer, with seismic consequences.

These voice computing technologies are at the sharp end of the technological experience, and could provide far-reaching lessons for many other industries; if not the future development of our species.
Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another – which is seemingly a big ask for many humans, let alone an artificial intelligence. So, are there ways to systematise the process of empathy to deliver a ‘more human than human’ computer experience? And can commercial brands be instrumental in pioneering this verbal engineering as they search for new ways to exploit these new technologies without resorting to crass ‘sales speak’?

If voice is the mouse or trackpad of the future, then it needs to be verbally engineered, just as much as a physical product is ergonomically designed.