Numerous studies with 6,282 participants revealed that individuals are more likely to express empathy towards chatbots if they think they are conversing with a human. Research indicates that while some AI models exhibit capabilities to simulate empathy and emotional responses, people prefer human interaction for emotional support. The perception of responses as human-generated resulted in higher empathy ratings, with participants willing to wait longer for these responses compared to those attributed to AI. Results show that emotional cues amplify perceived empathy in interactions.
Human-attributed responses were rated as more empathic and supportive, and elicited more positive and fewer negative emotions, than AI-attributed ones. Moreover, participants' own uninstructed belief that AI had aided the human-attributed responses reduced perceived empathy and support. These effects were replicated across varying response lengths, delays, iterations and large language models and were primarily driven by responses emphasizing emotional sharing and care.
Additionally, people consistently chose human interaction over AI when seeking emotional engagement. These findings advance our general understanding of empathy, and specifically human-AI empathic interactions.
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