Sensitivity & AI

Who We Are Awaiting “Digital Species”?

According to the CEO of Microsoft AI, advanced AI Personal Agents, a new “digital species,” will soon possess exceptional EQ and become kind, supportive, and empathetic.

Elena V. Amber
ILLUMINATION
Published in
9 min readJun 1, 2024

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Image credit: Depositphotos

Read on my website / Reading time 9 min.

In his recent TED talk, “What Is an AI Anyway?” Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI, explains how advanced, personal AI agents will soon possess exceptional EQ: they will become kind, supportive, and empathetic. Thus, he announces the arrival of a new “digital species.”

Could we assume that to have an exceptional IQ — one enough to be seen as kind, supportive, and empathetic?

What is Empathy? Empathy is mainstreamed as the ability to put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Let’s investigate how lay people understand this ability.

The Greater Good Magazine recommends asking someone questions to understand their feelings before taking any perspective because it could backfire.

Can AI ask questions if data is insufficient to conclude what someone feels? Yes, it is absolutely programmable.

The researcher and Stanford University psychologist Jamil Zaki, PhD, author of “The War for Kindness: Building Empathy in a Fractured World,” defines empathy as the “psychological superglue” that bonds people, fostering cooperation and kindness.

How sure are we that this “psychological superglue” arises from empathy, not sympathy, which focuses on responding or reacting to experiences?

In his article “Empathy vs. Sympathy: What’s the Difference?” Michael Miller from Six Seconds explains that empathy means experiencing someone else’s feelings. He points out that the word “empathy” comes from the German Einfühlung, or “feeling into” which requires an emotional component of really feeling what the other person is feeling.

Sympathy, on the other hand, means understanding someone else’s suffering. It’s more cognitive in nature and keeps a certain distance.

American Psychological Association’s article “Cultivating empathy” by Ashley Abramson revealed even if empathy doesn’t come naturally, research suggests people can cultivate it — and hopefully improve society as a result.

Could AI cultivate empathy, at least partly? To answer this question, let’s investigate empathy as a multifaceted phenomenon, where there are a few types. Let’s consider them separately.

Cognitive Empathy and AI

In his article “Empathy: How to Feel and Respond to the Emotions of Others,” Helpguide.org’s author Sheldon Reid describes the Cognitive type of empathy as recognizing and understanding another person’s mental state.” He points out that it gives us insight into the other person’s perspective and emotions.

Could AI recognize and understand someone angry? Absolutely. Yes, emotion recognition techniques based on speech, facial emotion recognition, eye tracking, galvanic skin response, heart rate, and other physiological signals could be transformed into knowledge of what others feel.

Reid gives an example of the following emotion understanding appropriate behavior: “If you recognize that your spouse is angry, you can predict that your joke isn’t going to land well. If you can tell that your friend is feeling helpless, you won’t be surprised by their sudden outburst.”

Could AI have an algorithm that prevents jokes once someone is angry? No doubts.

Cognitive empathy is important, yet without an emotional component, we don’t create social bonds that unite us and make meaningful connections.

Emotional Empathy and AI

Let’s check another type: Affective (or emotional) empathy. Reid suggests emotional empathy refers firstly to feeling the same emotion as the other person. The second component is feeling distress at their hardship, while the third is feeling compassion for them. To him, the distress we might feel is not related to the feeling of the other person but our own personal feeling of upset that someone else is going through something painful.

It is hard to imagine AI being upset as the digital species has no feelings, at least not yet.

Compassionate empathy and AI

Masterclass.com differentiates the third component of affective empathy into compassionate empathy. To them, it is seen as a hybrid of cognitive and emotional empathy that is valuable in problem-solving situations when someone asks for your advice. Compassionate empathy requires analyzing the underlying cause and effect of a situation. They suggest that after someone explains their circumstances, you can demonstrate that you understand their situation unbiasedly. This could provide the speaker with insight or an alternative perspective.

But how would demonstrating that you understand a person’s situation and alternative perspective be different from effective communication in this case?

What about just being an effective communicator?

The experts at Forbes Advisor detail the top 10 tips for effective communication in the workplace, where active listening and embracing feedback are advice for great two-way communication.

If I understand that you feel pain but I don’t feel the pain, I still could make both active listening and embracing feedback, the same AI does.

As a real person, I could comfort you in the same way I could choose not to. I could be in a position to not care about your pain as a conscious choice. Let’s say you did something extremely painful to me, and I am not in the mood to comfort you at all.

In the same way, narcissists or toxic people would definitely understand that they cause pain, but they don’t care about it simply because they don’t feel it themselves.

The difference would be the emotional response timeline: my anger will be processed in time, but emotionally numb people will not have an emotional engagement at all. The same is true for AI.

Understanding without feeling is possible, and this is the ability that AI has while it can not feel itself and others or create meaningful emotional engagement.

Celes describes that many people don’t acknowledge the other person’s feelings as one of the biggest problems she knows in communication. To her, acknowledging means to recognize the importance of something. She suggests if someone says, “I feel so frustrated with X,” acknowledging this feeling, saying, “Why are you frustrated?” or “I’m sorry to hear that. What happened?”

Active listening could be mechanistic, with occasional questioning and allowing the other to speak. If someone actively listens to you, that doesn’t mean they feel you.

Invaluable qualities that AI currently struggles to replicate

In his article “The Impact of AI on the Past, Present, and Future of Leadership,” Professor Alan Brown revealed that despite the hype surrounding AI’s human-like capabilities, human leaders possess invaluable qualities that AI currently struggles to replicate.

According to Brown, AI can be a powerful tool but cannot build trust, foster collaboration, and navigate complex social dynamics, all essential for effective leadership.

Is that only leaders who have such “invaluable qualities”?

Signing his foreword for The Gift of Sensitivity book, Dr. Paul J. Zak, professor, speaker, neuroeconomics, and author of Immersion: The Science of the Extraordinary and the Source of Happiness, wrote:

“When groups congregate, having even one highly sensitive person increases the group’s effectiveness. Humans thrive on collective action, and sensitive people like being part of a group and will work to make the group successful. The empath’s social nature guides others in improving health and happiness. For those of us who are less sensitive, there are lessons to be learned from the highly sensitive.”

Does that mean that highly sensitive people serve as an example of what is possible for humans in a technological acceleration age developing at unprecedented speed?

The Gift of Sensitivity book published forty-seven specific points related to the abilities of sensitive people. This is a summary of what becomes possible and ready for you with a decision to increase your sensitivity:

Sensitivity Tenets:

  • Sensitive people are highly alert to external information, being it socially emotional or environmental, and have a higher ability to perceive subtle changes,
  • They are fast connectors, for example, to nature and natural objects where they recharge,
  • They possessed healing abilities as they understood the hidden language of the body, including the meaning of health problems and symptoms,
  • They have excellent intuition and abilities to develop it further for qualified non-linear predictions,
  • They can not only feel emotions but transmit emotions to others,
  • They have the highest adaptability, are ready faster for any change, and search for possibilities mindset.

Perception and Communication:

  • Patterns become the way sensitives perceive the world as they understand the system’s connections,
  • They feel synchronicities, more often understand the hidden meaning of situations and what is happening in reality,
  • They have the ability to read life “between the lines,”
  • They could feel the outcome of plans and perspectives, predict things and situations,
  • They not only feel but predict the emotional reactions of others to a high degree,
  • They have a high social acceptance, inclusion, and diversity focus,
  • They feel the best potential of others and could inspire people,
  • They understand causes which effects, feeling motives explaining the behavior of others,
  • Many develop polymath qualities not because they are genius but based on the ability to see similar tendencies in different fields,
  • Suitable for multidisciplinary, multitasking projects based on the ability to feel the similarity in many areas,
  • Switch easily between industries in their working experience, therefore having a fresh and broader perspective.

Decision-Making and Confidence:

  • They take more time making decisions and can feel overwhelmed when making important choices,
  • Confidence is boosted when decisions align with their sensitive nature,
  • They can connect with an inner understanding of various subjects,
  • Some sensitive people use precognition abilities to make non-linear predictions in finance and other areas,
  • Embrace the unknown because it is not blind faith for them. The unknown comes steadily by resonance, which sensitive could feel in advance,
  • Have strong feelings towards justice and always stand for somebody in situations of inequality,
  • They can alter the perception of self and others, pointing to invisible/hidden/not evident to many.

Problem-Solving Abilities:

  • They have high social problem-solving abilities,
  • They are adept at obtaining clues out of intuition,
  • They can easily sense what is important or needed in a situation,
  • Know the most probable way out of any situation, yet need to learn how to explain it to others and stay firm in their knowing,
  • They could significantly ease the group’s communication and naturally prevent tensions,
  • Very often have the urge to get new information, new people, new experiences, new travels, new places, new jobs, and similar, which would create emotional engagement,
  • They can comfortably dissolve in any culture and understand the logic of diversity and its meaning.

Challenges and Self-Development:

  • Sensitivity can lead to disconnections and loneliness,
  • Sensitives need to practice self-trust to enhance sensitivity,
  • Challenges include forming their own opinions and managing overwhelming emotions,
  • Most sensitives have high vulnerability and need to spend time to transform it,
  • Mastery of emotions and self-trust are key to navigating the challenges of being sensitive,
  • Sensitives often must restrain themselves in communication to prevent being perceived as rude because they could start the answer before the other person finishes the sentence. Their exchange and communication speed are fast.

The list could be endless, but I want to adequately convey the meaning of being sensitive.

I don’t know if developing sensitivity is the path for everybody. Yet it seems only the ability to feel and produce the hormone of social bonds — oxytocin — lets us emotionally engage. We could be moderately intelligent without emotional engagement, unlike the highly intelligent “new digital species.”

Still, many people could develop sensitive abilities to some extent. Sensitivity is the degree to which we sense and perceive the world. We have seen it as a weakness for too long, especially at work.

Yet sensitivity is a key to trust, flexibility, inclusiveness, diversity, social bonds, originality, and the benefits of non-linear thinking. This type of thinking is not based on the processing speed of multiple existing data but on the unknown and resonance with the greater good.

Should we reassess who we are and make the right decision about what we need to develop for the future?

Suppose we stop competing for intellectual capital and direct our energy to develop emotional capital, which allows us access to untapped subconscious fields of information.

Would our future be different in the presence of AI Personal Agents? Will we cope with each other or thrive together?

Find me on LinkedIn, Goodreads, or a website. Send me professional inquiries at Kirkus ProConnect.

Whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

  1. The Gift of Sensitivity Book saves your precious time summarising 8 years of research & personal journey. Take a copy to discover your own sensitivity, transforming it into a superpower for a future with extraordinary faculties such as creativity, originality, innovation, intuition, flexibility, and inclusiveness in times of technological acceleration.
  2. Your Emotional Capital Newsletter informs you with a mosaic of perspectives and insights on how emotional depth can fuel transformation, expedite learning, and activate greater cognitive capacities. Here, vulnerability meets strength, and sensitivity is recast not as a liability but as a potent asset.
  3. Notes of Sensitive Resurgent Practical Guide encourages sharing your story and/or questions. It is a practical “how-to” guide that aims to help you understand and experience what’s possible when we tap into our innate abilities. Let’s grow together!

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Elena V. Amber
ILLUMINATION

Emotional Capital Step by Step Journey. Founder, doctoral researcher, award winning author / The Gift of Sensitivity