Unlocking the power of Artificial Intelligence to develop people’s empathetic skills
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https://doi.org/10.31039/plic.2025.13.329Keywords:
ChatGPT, Artificial Intelligence, Empathy, Interpersonal Reactivity Index, Empathic Concern, AI-based empathy trainingAbstract
Empathy shapes our interactions and is an important foundation for our relationships, be they private or professional. The fact that there are people who lack empathy raises the question of whether empathy can be learned. This research focuses on exploring how AI-based empathy training can help promote human empathy. It employs three methodological approaches: (1) an expert interview with a specialist in empathy, (2) expert questionnaires, and (3) scenario-based questionnaires answered by both humans and ChatGPT, with results compared using the IRI assessment. This study concludes that AI-supported training, provided it meets certain requirements, must be fundamentally human-centered. Successful AI-supported empathy training enables realistic yet harm-free emotional experiences and incorporates diversity considerations directly into algorithm design. Both ethical and psychological prerequisites such as trust, emotional security, and cultural sensitivity as well as design requirements for AI interaction, need to be met. While AI-supported training can never replace human interaction, it may complement it. Furthermore, ChatGPT already demonstrates empathetic responses to the scenario-based questionnaires without being explicitly prompted to do so.
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