| The Secret to Becoming an Empathetic Confidant
American Medical Association Internal Medicine found that patients with a medical concern preferred a chatbot’s (artificial intelligence) response to a physician’s nearly 80% of the time. They were found to be more compassionate.
Wow! Have we as humans become so disconnected to our fellow beings that computers are more empathetic in responding to our medical needs? How do each of your physicians respond to yours? Do they listen or just input data into their laptop?
When listening we instinctively want to help by giving advice or sharing our own experiences. The unfortunate truth is that this tends to trivialize someone’s pain or problem. Computers, chatbots and AI do not have the capabilities to do this (don’t have their own personal experiences) and make the interaction more about the troubled person.
(Did You Know? Given a small taste, consumers prefer Pepsi, the sweeter beverage over Coca-Cola: given a whole can they prefer Coca-Cola. The moral is below.)
Chatbots respond to personal questions by paraphrasing the person’s struggles, acknowledging them, ask how they feel and follow-up with questions. Looping is a technique in which a listener repeats what someone else says in their own words then asks if their summary is correct. Chatbots are natural loopers.
The recipe of paraphrase, affirm, follow-up may feel warm and attentive the first time but rote the second and annoying the third, much like a full glass of Pepsi is to many consumers. But the fact that we often must earn human empathy and that it comes from limited beings who sacrifice to be there for us, is part of its beauty.
-Jamil Zaki, professor of psychology at Stanford University. |
