Book contents
- Empathy and Artificial Intelligence
- Studies in Emotion and Social Interaction
- Empathy and Artificial Intelligence
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- AI and Empathy at a Crossroads
- Part I Understanding Empathy
- Part II Perceiving AI Empathy
- Part III Beyond Text: Embodiment and Robots
- Chapter 13 Examining the Capacity of Human Beings to Experience Empathy toward AI
- Chapter 14 Trust and Social Affiliation May Influence Evacuee Decisions during Robot-Guided Evacuation
- Chapter 15 Does Embodiment Influence Empathy toward Artificial Agents?
- Chapter 16 Your Robot Will Feel You Now
- Chapter 17 Children’s Judgments of and Interactions with Empathetic AI
- Chapter 18 Anticipating Children’s Beliefs about Artificial Empathy
- Chapter 19 From Social Media to Empathic Artificial Intelligence
- Part IV Moral Implications
- Index
- Studies In Emotion and Social Interaction
- References
Chapter 18 - Anticipating Children’s Beliefs about Artificial Empathy
from Part III - Beyond Text: Embodiment and Robots
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2026
Book contents
- Empathy and Artificial Intelligence
- Studies in Emotion and Social Interaction
- Empathy and Artificial Intelligence
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- AI and Empathy at a Crossroads
- Part I Understanding Empathy
- Part II Perceiving AI Empathy
- Part III Beyond Text: Embodiment and Robots
- Chapter 13 Examining the Capacity of Human Beings to Experience Empathy toward AI
- Chapter 14 Trust and Social Affiliation May Influence Evacuee Decisions during Robot-Guided Evacuation
- Chapter 15 Does Embodiment Influence Empathy toward Artificial Agents?
- Chapter 16 Your Robot Will Feel You Now
- Chapter 17 Children’s Judgments of and Interactions with Empathetic AI
- Chapter 18 Anticipating Children’s Beliefs about Artificial Empathy
- Chapter 19 From Social Media to Empathic Artificial Intelligence
- Part IV Moral Implications
- Index
- Studies In Emotion and Social Interaction
- References
Summary
A wealth of studies suggest that children anthropomorphize artificial intelligence (e.g., voice assistants, humanoid robots) to a greater degree than do adults, suggesting that children may recognize at least some forms of artificial intelligence as meaningful "social" partners. Adults, however, seem more divided on this premise. For example, adults sometimes admit to feeling "more heard" by AI-generated empathic responses than human-generated empathic responses – but only when they believe the empathy came from a human. Would children similarly reject "artificial empathy"? In this chapter, I review developmental evidence that suggests otherwise: Today’s children (and future children) may very well accept artificial empathy as on par with empathy from humans. This may even come to affect how future generations value empathy in human-human interaction.
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- Empathy and Artificial IntelligenceChallenges, Advances and Ethical Considerations, pp. 174 - 182Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2026
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