Artificial Emotional Intelligence

Abstract

Artificial Emotional Intelligence (AEI) refers to sociotechnical systems that simulate empathy by sensing, interpreting, and responding to human affective cues. Amidst a deepening global loneliness crisis, AEI tools promise emotionally responsive companionship, therapy, and support across domains including healthcare, education, and commerce. Yet, this promise is double-edged. AEI transforms emotional expression into data, intensifying surveillance capitalism and emotional commodification. It risks fostering dependency, emotional deskilling, and cultural misrecognition. Drawing on interdisciplinary insights, this Catchword article conceptualises AEI as layered emotional infrastructure, comprised of technologies, users, providers, and socio-political context. We analyse AEI's transformative potential in augmenting care and reshaping digital intermediation, while diagnosing its systemic risks to intimacy, trust, and social cohesion. Finally, we propose a research agenda for the BISE community, structured around three pillars: trustworthy and secure AEI; culturally adaptive and context-aware AEI; and the social and psychological impacts of AEI. AEI demands governance frameworks aligned with dignity, compassion, and justice.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Emotions, Empathy, Governance, Use, Design