Ethics Untangled
Ethics Untangled is a series of conversations about the ethical issues that affect all of us, with academics who have spent some time thinking about them. It is brought to you by the IDEA Centre, a specialist unit for teaching, research, training and consultancy in Applied Ethics at the University of Leeds.
Find out more about IDEA, including our Masters programmes in Healthcare Ethics and Applied and Professional Ethics, our PhDs and our consultancy services, here:
ahc.leeds.ac.uk/ethics
Ethics Untangled is edited by Mark Smith at Leeds Media Services.
Music is by Kate Wood.
Ethics Untangled
61. Do we really react emotionally to AI? With Rebecca Wallbank
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In this episode, we’re asking whether people can really have genuine emotional reactions to artificial intelligence. Many of us already feel things towards AIs – whether that’s frustration with a chatbot, affection for a companion robot, or even comfort in talking to a virtual assistant – but should we take these emotions seriously? Philosopher Rebecca Wallbank joins me to explore what counts as a ‘genuine’ emotion, whether our responses to AI differ from our responses to fiction, and what it means to say that these emotions might be profound. Together, we’ll consider whether there’s anything irrational about these reactions, and what their significance might be for our emotional lives in a world increasingly shaped by AI.
Here's Rebecca's paper on the topic:
https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/59762/chapter-abstract/508607528?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds.
Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bsky.social
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/idea-ethics-centre/