Social Cognition

Abstract

Abstract This chapter discusses Sophie de Grouchy’s views on social cognition and morality. De Grouchy had a particularly interesting empiricist take on the origins of empathy in the earliest experiences of infancy. This chapter argues that research on artificial social cognition is in danger of taking on board too many rationalist assumptions and heading down blind alleys, and it suggests that accurate modeling of human-like moral and social cognition will require backtracking to develop better models of human-like emotional reactions and learning curricula to hone them if we can hope to better recapitulate the formative social interactions in infancy and childhood that are required to bootstrap a human-like faculty of empathy. This chapter reviews a variety of early moves in these directions from areas of research like affective computing and artificial rearing studies.