AI Seems More Compassionate Than Human Experts

AI responses seem more empathetic than those of human experts. A recent study had participants compare responses to emotional accounts, and AI beat both laypeople and professional crisis counselors.¹

Feeling empathy and communicating empathy are apparently two different things. Humans feel genuine compassion but often fail to put it into the right words. AI feels nothing but has learned which phrases are perceived as empathetic and produces them reliably.

The study only compared text responses. In a real conversation with facial expressions and tone of voice, the result might look different.