Emo AI starring Kenza Ait Si Abbou
Is it good when machines trigger feelings?
03/01/2023, 10:00 a.m
Robots cannot feel. Nevertheless, it happens again and again that people get emotionally involved with machines. Conversely, artificial intelligence can also recognize, evaluate and express human emotions, explains author Kenza Ait Si Abbou in the ntv podcast “So techt Deutschland”.
In fact, everyone knows that robots cannot feel. Nevertheless, it happens again and again that people get emotionally involved with machines. Employees give robots names such as Robo and talk to them, as is often the case in care. A phenomenon that also book author Kenza Ait Si Abbou knows: Until recently she was an AI expert at Deutsche Telekom and now works for the American technology group IBM. In her new book “Menschenversteher” she deals with the question of how emotional AI conquers our everyday life.
Kenza Ait Si Abbou
(Photo: picture alliance / Hubert Burda Media)
It’s not just about the humanization of robots. Kenza Ait Si Abbou describes how artificial intelligence (AI) can recognize, evaluate and express human emotions: face, eye movements, our language and our brain are important indicators of how we feel.
“A high-resolution camera can also capture these micro-expressions, as they say,” says the expert. “These are very fast muscle movements that take place in fractions of a second, which show the real feelings, so to speak, before you make a different face afterwards.”
Trigger positive feelings
The AI can then be programmed to be able to respond to those emotions, for example by showing a smile to evoke positive feelings. Ultimately, it is not important whether the AI itself has emotions, but whether it is able to trigger feelings in people, emphasizes Kenza Ait Si Abbou. “It’s much less about how the machine feels itself, but what feelings it triggers in us humans.”
The goal is an AI that is able to trigger positive feelings in people, for example by smiling. “When I meet a robot that smiles and I smile back, I feel good.”
However, the author also emphasizes that AI should be developed in an ethical and responsible manner to avoid negative effects. Kenza Ait Si Abbou explains in the podcast “So techt Deutschland” why Europe definitely needs a large language model like ChatGPT and why education is so important for dealing with AI.
In “So techt Deutschland” the ntv moderators Frauke Holzmeier and Andreas Laukat ask founders, investors, politicians and entrepreneurs how things are with Germany as a technology location. All episodes can be found in the ntv app, at RTL+ music, Apple Podcastsand Spotify. Also at Amazon Music and Google Podcasts you will find it.