Does it matter if empathic AI has no empathy?
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Registry
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Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Emotional validation without critique can foster short-term comfort but risks encouraging emotional overdependence.
“Emotional validation without critique can foster short-term comfort but risks encouraging emotional overdependence (Shteynberg et al., 2024).”
From Sycophantic AI decreases prosocial intentions and promotes dependence (2026) · cites this paper as Shteynberg et al., 2024
Cites
Ayers, J. W., Poliak, A., Dredze, M., Leas, E. C., Zhu, Z., Kelley, J. B., Faix, D. J., Goodman, A. M., Longhurst, C. A., Hogarth, M., et al. (2023) · JAMA Internal Medicine · doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2023.1838 · Cited by 2,613 · see citing works
In principle obstacles for empathic AI: why we can’t replace human empathy in healthcare
Montemayor, C., Halpern, J., & Fairweather, A. (2022) · AI & SOCIETY · doi:10.1007/s00146-021-01230-z · Cited by 293 · see citing works
Self-citationAI will never convey the essence of human empathy
Perry, A. (2023) · Nature Human Behaviour · doi:10.1038/s41562-023-01675-w · Cited by 162 · see citing works
Self-citation
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Sycophantic AI decreases prosocial intentions and promotes dependence
Cheng, M., Lee, C., Khadpe, P., Yu, S., Han, D., & Jurafsky, D. (2026) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.aec8352 · Cited by 185 · see citing works
Can Generative AI Chatbots Emulate Human Connection? A Relationship Science Perspective
Smith, M. G., Bradbury, T. N., & Karney, B. R. (2025) · Perspectives on Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/17456916251351306 · Cited by 88 · see citing works
- Authors
- Shteynberg, G., Halpern, J., Sadovnik, A., Garthoff, J., Perry, A., Hay, J., Montemayor, C., Olson, M. A., Hulsey, T. L., & Fairweather, A.
- Affiliations
- University of Tennessee at Knoxville (US)
- University of California, Berkeley (US)
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory (US)
- Hebrew University of Jerusalem (IL)
- San Francisco State University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Shteynberg, Garriy
- ORCID
- Venue
- Nature Machine Intelligence
- Published
- 2024-05-15
- Volume
- 6
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 496-497
- ISSN
- 2522-5839 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W4396929044
- Cited by
- 44
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 31 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 2
- FWCI
- 21.00
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- Locations
- Nature Machine Intelligence (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Social Robot Interaction and HRI
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › AI in Service Interactions
- Keywords
- empathic AI, artificial empathy, anthropomorphism, individual differences, third-party evaluation, responsible innovation
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Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
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