Too Perfect to be Like a Human? Emotional AI Caring Robots and Confucianism

The recent development of cognitive neuroscience has led to the investigation of affective computing which focuses on emotion of human-computer interaction. It has established three technologies, emotion detection and interpretation, dialog-reasoning using emotional information, and emotion generation and synthesis. These technologies contribute to the development of social affective chatbots or robots that provide affective interaction with people. As the population ages, the burden of dependence and chronic disease will become severe. Robots can be used to track patients throughout their illness and help sick, elderly, and disabled people stay in their homes and reduce hospital stays. As robots can simulate cognitive abilities without human feelings and desires, they can even be better than humans at taking care of neurodegenerative pathologies or severe disabilities, because they can listen with kindness and patience, and react to elders at very slow, “inhuman” rhythms and help them avoid depression and dementia. While robots taking care of the elderly physically and emotionally are worth looking forward to, such development may diminish the responsibility of family members to care for the elderly, which is considered an expression of filial piety in Confucianism. Furthermore, while AI may be able to simulate human emotional interaction, such simulation can never replace authentic embodied human interaction, in particular on its lack of impatience, from a Confucian perspective. This presentation explores the development of an emotional AI robot and its limitations with health care from a Confucian perspective.