Loneliness and Empathic AI

Why we picked it

Many people feel lonely in today's disconnected world. And this loneliness can create deep feelings of anguish and suffering. Does empathetic AI have a potentially positive role to play in helping some people abate such feelings? Or would turning to AI more likely make the problem even worse? Come along and arm-chair theorize with us about this fascinating topic Friday evening at Lake Ontario Park at 6pm. Paul Bloom has a great discussion of this topic here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpacFN8cU-Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpacFN8cU-Y) And he co-authored a recent paper on this issue ([abstract only here](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1364661323002899)), those really ambitious can download the full paper [from here.](https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/py8tv_v1) **Please be sure to bring a lawn chair**, we will be sitting under a tree just past the sheltered area where the bathrooms are located. This Friday evening meetup is only for humans, so yo