Emotional AI in Chinese Healthcare: Benevolent Deception Machines and Their Medical Ethical Dilemmas.

Abstract

This paper examines the ethical challenges posed by the application of emotional AI in Chinese healthcare, characterizing it as a "benevolent deception machine." The article argues that emotional AI's "optimism bias" and "simulated empathy" render it an efficient tool for executing "benevolent deception," giving rise to two primary ethical concerns: erosion of patient autonomy and the potential to trigger deep-seated crises of trust. Nevertheless, the paper contends that emotional AI can be justified within the Chinese sociocultural context-Confucian familism grants the family a central role in decision-making, current laws reserve discretion for "withholding information," and the ethical framework of "jingquan" (constant and variable) provides philosophical grounds for flexibility. The unique value of emotional AI lies in its ability to transform unstable, ad hoc responses by family members into a controlled communicative practice, finding justification within the ethical logic that "since autonomy is sacrificed, maximum protection must be pursued." The article concludes that the design and application of emotional AI must always maintain "human-in-the-loop" oversight, ensuring that physician authority remains non-transferable and ethical auditing is non-negotiable.