Empathy and AI: cognitive empathy or emotional (affective) empathy?

Recent years have seen a global growth in developing Artificial Intelligence/Machine learning/social robots for healthcare. Japan invests over 30% of its GDP on social robotics to make up for the lack of care workers (including nurses). The new Labour Government in the UK is now proposing a major investment in AI in the National Health Service (NHS). Global AI healthcare spending is expected to reach $36.1 billion by 2025 and have a significant impact on how care is managed and given as innovations such as intelligent robots are launched into healthcare and patient home settings (Robert 2019). In Japan, it is envisaged that social robots will become as common place as smartphones are today.¹ In the USA and UK, AI/machine learning technologies are being developed to replace some tasks and augment healthcare practices: the machine algorithms would take on certain functions such as processing vast data, and basic administrative tasks such as gathering patient data and scheduling tasks, e.g. of nurses, that are time consuming and detract them from empathic connection with their patients, thereby ‘freeing’ them to ‘care’ for patients. …