Comment on An AI Social Coach Is Teaching Empathy to People with Autism
zbyte64@awful.systems 1 day agoAdditionally, AI will only be getting better,
It might get cheaper, but that doesn’t mean it’s doing a better job.
if the alternative is telling people that are struggling and have no other options that they have to tough it out
That’s just it, if you’re talking to someone who’s is struggling with this there is already a better option: showing empathy. I suspect our perceived lack of empathy is a reflection of how society treats people in general, we are just more honest about it.
MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com 1 day ago
By getting better, I mean it will be improving on itself. I never meant to indicate that it will be better than a trained professional.
I agree that showing ND people empathy is the best path forward, but realistically being able to socially signal empathy is a life skill and lacking that skill really only damages their own prospects. It’d be great if it didn’t make people less likely to be employable or less able to build a robust support network, but unfortunately that’s the case. Yes, ASD differences are often a reflection of how society treats people, but a demonstration of empathy is not a platitude. It’s an important way NT and lots of ND connect. If you think that the expression of empathy is difficult for people with ASD because they are more honest, then I think you might be equating lack of empathy with difficulty expressing it. There’s nothing dishonest about saying “I’m sorry that happened to you” unless you are not sorry it happened. It might not be something you would normally verbally express, but if hearing about a bad thing happening to someone doesn’t make you feel for them, then the difficulty isn’t expressing empathy, it’s lacking it. Society certainly does a lot of things for bad or nonsensical reasons, but expressing empathy generally isn’t one of them.
zbyte64@awful.systems 1 day ago
Saying that you’re not worth the time to train someone to interact with you better but here’s a product you can buy is a platitude. You failed the empathy test.
MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com 1 day ago
I at no point said that anyone wasn’t worth the time for personal interaction. I said multiple times that my preferred solution would not involve having to resort to AI. That’s such a bad faith interpretation of my position that I can’t imagine this being productive at this point. Best of luck.