The Value of Perceiving a Human Response: Comparing Perceived Human versus AI-Generated Empathy

In five preregistered studies (n = 3,471), we examined differences in perception of empathic responses thought to be AI-generated or written by humans, to further understand the value of human empathy. We provided participants with AI-generated empathic responses, while manipulating the responses’ perceived source to be written by humans or AI-generated. We measured participants’ perception of empathy in the response, as well as positive emotions, negative emotions and support felt following the response. We further tested whether thinking that a human response was edited by AI, or an AI response was edited by a human, influences these emotional reactions (studies 2 and 3). In study 3 we examined which aspects of the empathic response (understanding, sharing of emotions, caring) affect perceived empathy, depending on the perceived source. While all responses were rated positively, participants’ belief about any AI involvement reduced ratings of empathy, support and positive emotions. Specifically, emotional sharing and care had unique value when perceived as coming from humans. Lastly, to examine how much a human response is valued and why, we tested how long people are willing to wait for a human to respond (study 4) or even just read about (study 5) their emotional experience, compared to receiving an immediate AI response. There were no differences between the waiting times, with some participants willing to wait up to two years for a human to respond or just read about their experience. Choosing to wait was due to participants’ intuition that humans could better empathize with them compared to AI. Together, results suggest that people attribute greater emotional value to communication they believe to be human, as opposed to communication with an AI, or involving it. These differences may stem from humans’ unique potential to genuinely feel and care, which AI does not possess. These findings have broad implications regarding how to wisely implement AI in our social - emotional lives.