Uncertainty for Good, Inverting Automated Empathy

Abstract

Abstract This chapter assesses whether technologies that simulate empathy may do social good. It argues that automated empathy, how people interact with it, and to an extent its governance, needs to be inverted. Its argument is humanities-based, seeing value in the social life of data. The chapter claims that what good looks like for empathic systems is where people can engage with their bodies and communications to facilitate novel forms of reflection, learning, creativity, and expression. To address data protection, it takes its cue from philosophies of play. These refute the idea that play is predicated on openness and absence of rules, but the opposite: play as a safe setting for creative endeavour, experimentation, expression, strengthening, and learning. The same is argued for automated and simulated empathy.