New publication with @dcameron.bsky.social and @minzlicht.bsky.social in @commspsychol.nature.com! www.nature.com/articles/s44... AI empathy is good, but would people actually choose to turn to AI for emotional support over a human empathizer?

New preprint with @dcameron.bsky.social and @mgreinecke.bsky.social! Rethinking empathy in the age of AI osf.io/preprints/ps... How should we define empathy as a construct in an age where AI can provide quality emotional support, but doesn’t actually feel? 1/5

Wintry walk with the EMP Lab @amormino.bsky.social @jokretz.bsky.social @farvk.bsky.social @jdweng.bsky.social @psuliberalarts.bsky.social @prcpennstate.bsky.social @ssripennstate.bsky.social @rockethics.bsky.social

New chapter with @dcameron.bsky.social, Martina Orlandi, and @minzlicht.bsky.social: osf.io/preprints/ps... In this chapter, we argue that instead of debating whether human or AI empathy is superior overall, it is more useful to focus on the distinct trade-offs that each source of empathy offers.

A snapshot of our last summer meeting of the EMP Lab. A Happy Valley welcome to new members, graduate student @jokretz.bsky.social & post-doc @amormino.bsky.social, & farewell to alum @rachelbuterbaugh.bsky.social, who's off to grad school. With @jdweng.bsky.social @farvk.bsky.social, a great team!

So grateful for the chance to attend the EASP Summer School organized by @jimaceverett.bsky.social. Huge thanks to @jimaceverett.bsky.social and @mgreinecke.bsky.social for your mentorship in the Moral Psych of AI workstream, and to all of the other amazing students I had the chance to learn from!

Thanks to everybody who chimed in! I arrived at the conclusion that (1) there's a lot of interesting stuff about interactions and (2) the figure I was looking for does not exist. So, I made it myself! Here's a simple illustration of how to control for confounding in interactions:>

I'll be sharing some data from our recent preprint on AI empathy choice (osf.io/preprints/os...) in a talk at the Society for Affective Science Annual Conference this Saturday. Stop by or reach out if you're interested in talking about AI, empathy, or causal inference! @affectscience.bsky.social

New preprint with @dcameron.bsky.social and @minzlicht.bsky.social! We find that people choose to receive empathy from human over AI empathizers, despite finding AI responses superior in terms of empathy and making them feel more heard. Link: osf.io/preprints/os...

On another note, the EMP Lab will be at @affectscience.bsky.social in Portland, Oregon, for anyone who'd like to chat about empathy, motivated emotion regulation, & moral outrage. My grad student @jdweng.bsky.social will be giving his first external talk on human vs. AI empathy. The coffee awaits!