#622 Emotionally Intelligent AI: Ethics, Empathy & Human-Centred Tech with Robin Hills

Are we forgetting the human in the machine?

As technology evolves faster than ever, one question looms large: How can we ensure Artificial Intelligence serves—not replaces—humanity? In this transformative episode of Talking with the Experts, I’m joined by Dr. Robin Hills, a global leader in emotional intelligence (EI) and business psychology, to explore the powerful intersection between Emotional Intelligence and AI.

Dr. Hills explains why understanding emotions isn’t just good leadership—it’s essential to designing and managing ethical, effective AI systems. Together, we’ll break down how emotional intelligence can support ethical tech development, reduce AI bias, and create more meaningful human-AI interactions.

From neuroscience-backed insights to practical communication strategies, Robin brings his decades of experience—plus insights from 500,000+ students globally—to help us reframe how we think about technology. He shares why empathy and ethics must guide innovation, and how emotionally intelligent leadership is the key to future-ready teams and organisations.

In a world increasingly driven by algorithms, Robin challenges us to return to what makes us human: awareness, compassion, and connection. You’ll leave this episode with not only a new understanding of AI’s potential but also actionable ways to grow your own EI—and help shape the future of ethical innovation.

🎧 Tune in and discover:

• Why EI is essential when designing AI systems.
• How to integrate ethics and empathy into tech development.
• Actionable tips to improve your own emotional intelligence at work.

This is a must-listen for business leaders, developers, coaches, and anyone passionate about creating a future where humanity and technology grow together.

 🔗CONNECT WITH ROBIN

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ei4change/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EI4Change/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ei4change/

Website: https://ei4change.com/

📌 PROMOTION: https://emotional.intelligence.courses/collection

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Transcript

Intro | 00:01
Welcome to Talking With The Experts. Here we discuss all things business. By business owners. For business owners. Here is your host, Rose Davidson. 

 Rose | 00:12
Hello, welcome to Talking with the Experts. I'm your host, Rose Davidson from rosedavidson.com.au. My guest today is Robin Hills, and we're going to be discussing the importance of emotional intelligence when working with AI. Now, AI or emotional intelligence is crucial when working with AI or artificial intelligence to ensure that technology serves humanity responsibly. AI enables professionals to understand and manage emotions, supporting better communication and collaboration between humans and AI systems. It helps identify ethical, Considerations address biases and enhance user experience by making AI interactions more empathetic and user-friendly. And by integrating AI, You can create AI solutions that are not only efficient, but sensitive to human needs and values, leading to more effective and ethical AI deployment. Robin, welcome to Talking with the Experts. I am really looking forward to this conversation. 

 Robin | 01:25
Rose, it's a pleasure to be with you. Thank you for having me on your show. 

 Rose | 01:31
Lovely. Now tell me a little bit, why did you get into... EI 4 Change. 

 Robin | 01:41
AI for Change is my company, and I developed it about 15, 16 years ago when my role had been made redundant. And I realized what drove me, what passion I had around working was working and developing people. And at the time, emotional intelligence was known. It was a bit of a buzzword. A lot of people had heard of it. A lot of people didn't think that it was that important, but I saw the potential for it. 
 So I set my business up really to help people to improve their performance at work, in social settings and at home, the basis of which is emotional intelligence. 

 Rose | 02:29
Emotional intelligence, you know, we know improves understanding and management of emotions, but how can it... Better help us with interacting with AI. 

 Robin | 02:41
Well, first of all, I'd just like to take us back to basics and define what emotional intelligence is, because you're right, it does involve emotions. But people think that emotions are soft, fluffy, woolly things that don't really have a bit of a place in business. And that's so wrong and so false. Emotions are physiological and psychological reactions to our environment. We experience them all the time. 
 So emotional intelligence is all about being smart with your thinking. Combining that with your feelings in order to make good quality decisions and build up authentic relationships and so take appropriate action. 
 So to go back to your question with regards to AI, it's about making authentic decisions and building up appropriate relationships. Now, AI can make decisions. But are they good decisions? In the majority of cases, yeah, they're not bad. But I think the human element of decision-making won't go away for a long time because we are driven by certain ethics. Principles and morals. And this really underpins whether it is appropriate to utilize the outputs from AI. 
 And then, of course, the other component is building up relationships. Hey, I was... AI is great. But you can't develop a relationship with AI. 

 Rose | 04:21
Now I've built up a relationship with my GPT. I've given it a name. It understands me. It I don't know. If I tell her how I'm feeling it, comes up with ways that I can feel better. 
 So I don't know. I don't know that it doesn't really know. 
 I mean, I don't know that it doesn't understand us. Mine certainly, with the amount of prompts that I've given it and instruction, it actually knows me better than I know myself. 

 Robin | 04:50
This is great, Rose, because I think the AI systems that we've got access to are absolutely excellent. They really do help us to clarify our thinking. But you're not going to go down a coffee shop. You're not going to have a meal with an AI system. It doesn't really understand you that well. It doesn't. He doesn't understand what it was like being a girl, to be honest, I don't. But we both had a childhood, we both had upbringings, we both had parents, we both learnt rules through our upbringing. We both went to school, we both made friends, some of our friends we've lost along the way for various reasons. These are all parts and qualities of being human. 
 So whilst you can have a transactional relationship with AI, you're not going to be able to build up a really deep relationship with AI. It's not a great motivator. And when you're feeling really down, It's not going to give you a hug. 

 Rose | 06:01
No, that's very true. Yes, there is that human element that is definitely missing. I can't wait till they build a robot that can give you cuddles. 

 Robin | 06:12
It might be a bit steely in the first instance, because I think with the human body, we have so many muscles that interact in certain ways. Look, I can see the way in which you're using your facial muscles at the moment, and there's a big grin on your face, as indeed there is mine. And when we're actually working with people, we change our brain structure. We develop a degree of understanding and empathy. We build up that relationship. We change because of that interaction. And if it's a good interaction, which hopefully the majority of our interactions are, We become better human beings because of that, not despite that. Which is one of the reasons why as we get older, we become a lot wiser. 
 So whilst... Whilst AI can learn... It cannot develop empathy and understanding and depth of understanding in the way that we can as human beings. 

 Rose | 07:19
Yeah, there are ethical considerations with, you know, Using AI, I mean, emotional intelligence helps us to identify and address these ethical issues where AI systems may not. So how can we overcome that? 

 Robin | 07:38
Well, I think the important thing is to determine how we're going to use the outputs from AI, because as I've said, and I'll repeat it many times, AI is a brilliant tool. But it's not perfect. 
 So, for example, within the healthcare industry, and I do a fair amount of work with doctors, a lot of their work is going to be taken over by artificial intelligence. For example, certain doctors can have a diagnosis made very quickly with AI and AI will make recommendations. But it's up to the doctor to decide whether that is appropriate for the person that they're interacting with. Now you can plug in all the data. About a human being into AI systems, But the important thing is motivating that person and coming up with a personalized health care plan that is going to work. 
 So a lot of the rational decision making, a lot of the diagnosis, a lot of the analysis, a lot of the groundwork that happens in medicine is going to change quite radically. And the doctors are not happy about that. They're fighting that. But I keep saying to them, it's the ethics, the morals, the patient care ethics. Which moves doctors. Probably I'm going to say something quite outrageous here. Most doctors seem to minimize because they don't see that as being the important part of medicine. That's going to be far more important in the future. And this is where the ethics and the morals come in. 
 So you're not going to get an AI system where you plug yourself in. It comes along with a readout around how you are going to do it. It's drastically changed your life. And it's not going to, well, you're just not going to allow it to do that without some kind of human intervention to say, yes, this is right, this is appropriate. 

 Rose | 09:46
Yeah, I understand all that. I mean, we've just recently, it was something on the news this evening about COVID. How AI is taking over teaching roles. And, you know, and I can't say that a teacher will be totally made redundant because they still need that human element in the classroom to liaise with children, liaise with parents, and they need that caring, nurturing role within the classroom that AI can't provide. 
 So, yeah, I think... You know, even though that AI is entering the classroom, I don't think it will actually take away jobs from anyone. 

 Rose | 10:28
I think that's the great thing of AI now is that people are worried that they'll become redundant with AI. Everything in the world will need some human type interaction. 

 Robin | 10:41
It will. There are going to be certain jobs that are at higher risk than other jobs. And if we look at a spectrum, some of the data analysis and accounting and data input jobs will go because AI can do that very well and can do it much better than a human. 
 And then along the spectrum, you have where humans come in and they have much more of an important role. And these are some of the educational systems that you've talked about, Rose, and some of the medical systems that I talked about. They're going to radically change. But the key component is the human elements. 
 And then at the other end of the spectrum, where AI cannot and will not take over. Are things like Restaurant chefs... Which understand human taste and understand the nuances there. And people who work in the perfume industry and in the viniculture industry, again, this is driving us towards what humans do. And that's interacting with our environment through the senses of taste and smell. AI cannot replicate that. And another very interesting role, which will never be done by AI, Well, certainly not in my lifetime and certainly not in the next. 200 years, is these interpreters that do the interpretation for the deaf people. Because all of that involves nuances around using the body in order to communicate very sophisticated bits of information. 
 So for most people, what I do is I say to them, look, your role is going to radically change. Now you've got a choice. You either are going to be done unto, and AI will take over the major part of your role. Or you change and evolve around the role and do it in a number of ways and look at a number of components that AI cannot do. And there are mainly, there are four elements. We talked about a couple of them, Rose, so I'll build on the other two. The four elements are the judgment decision making around ethics and values. The empathy piece in terms of building up relationship and networking The other one is around creativity and innovation and taking risks. And the other one, very bizarrely, which is vitally important for us as human beings, and we need to start building it into the workplace, and that's spirituality. What are we doing here? Why are we here? What is the meaning and purpose of what we're about? These are big ethical questions, big spiritual questions. The... AI cannot. Understand, yet alone answer. 

 Rose | 13:41
No, absolutely. No, I agree with that. I think AI definitely has a place in the world, but you can't still take over that human connection, that human element. We're still, I mean, AI still needs human interaction anyway to input the data to be able to become as intelligent as it is. 
 So... You know, it's not there yet. I'm not quite sure that it will ever get to the point where, you know, there's some futuristic thing that humans won't will no longer be required. I don't think that that's the case. I don't think I think people are making a lot more out of AI and in making it problematic when it doesn't really need to be. 

 Robin | 14:28
No, I think that's right. I need to repeat once again, AI is a wonderful tool. I use it on a daily basis. But you've got to actually check the outputs. Is it giving the output that is appropriate for the question I'm asking? And what is the underlying bias here? Is it a bias that I need to re... Configure? Or... Is it giving me some information that I've not even thought about? 
 So I think really we've just got to look at it as a tool. And not get too worried. It's not going to go for world domination. Certainly not in my lifetime, not in anybody else's lifetime that is alive on the planet at the moment. It may be in the future, but we're not going to have to worry about that. 

 Rose | 15:20
No, I don't think so either. How could we use emotional intelligence that can... To transform the way we lead and manage our team members. 

 Robin | 15:33
Well, again, if I take you back to those four principles that distinguish emotional intelligence from artificial intelligence, I think the key element in terms of leading teams is to integrate AI into team working in the most appropriate way, make the team much more efficient, much more effective. But remember that you're actually. Leading a group of people. And a group of people need motivating, they need encouraging, they're there to do a good job, they're there to develop themselves and grow. 
 So how can you create the right learning environment? How can you lead them in an innovative, creative way? How do you take risks? How can you work with them strategically? Listen to what it is they have to say. Listen to their concerns. Listen to their worries. Make appropriate decisions, that are based on ethics, morals, and good quality teamwork, and then deal with each individual on a one-to-one basis. Ask them about what life means for them, ask them about their life. Who else is behind the scenes? Ask them about their partner. Ask them about their children. Ask them what they do at the weekend, what motivates them outside of work. Just get to know them as people. They're not robots. If you want to team a robot... It might be coming. But make sure that you use your team of people in the most appropriate way. 

 Rose | 17:19
Absolutely. And there is a difference between managing people and leading people. And good leaders do all the things that you have just suggested. They get to know the people that they are leading and they let their team lead from, below them, they lead upwards rather than the leader leading downwards. And I think, you know, a lot of our leaders today could take a leaf out of that suggestion. That's all I'm going to say on the matter. 

 Robin | 17:52
Well, thank you. But if we then look at management. A lot of that can be done by aye-aye. 
 So a lot of managers need to look at what it is that they're doing in terms of managing systems, because that's the bit that AI can do. Much better than you can at some point in the future. 
 So again, the important thing is to lead, not manage. 

 Rose | 18:19
Absolutely. No, I agree with that. Now, if you want to find out a bit more about Robin and what he can do and what he can offer you, go to his LinkedIn page. It's EI4Change. His Facebook page is the same, EI4Change. And Instagram is the same. And his website is EI4Change.com. Dot com. Now he has a courses collection that he is promoting today. Tell us a little bit about that, Robin. 

 Robin | 18:52
Well, I offer every month a bundle of the month, which consists of five courses based around the topic of emotional intelligence. And this offers four or five courses, maybe even six, it depends upon the topic, it depends on the courses. And they are offered at 199 US dollars, which is way below half price for all of the courses. 
 So what I would encourage your listeners to do is to look out for the bundle of the month and see if it's an appropriate bundle for them. And then the other thing to do is just to go on the website Have a dig around because there are some free courses that you can sign up for. 

 Rose | 19:38
Beautiful. Okay, I'll go and have a little bit of a sticky beak later. Robin, it's been an absolute pleasure. If you had some words of wisdom to impart with our audience today, what might they be? 

 Robin | 19:53
Be human, be kind. Be responsible and be the best version of you that you can possibly be because a robot can't do any of those. 

 Rose | 20:03
You're absolutely right. I agree with that 100%. Thank you so much for joining me today. It's been a pleasure. 

 Robin | 20:10
It's been fantastic, Rose. Thank you. 

 Rose | 20:12
Bye for now. 

 Outro | 20:15
You've been listening to Talking With The Experts, hosted by Rose Davidson. Make sure you have a look at our back catalogue over at talkingwiththeexperts.com. And be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you don't miss out on any episode. We look forward to your company next time.