Empathy by design? The affective politics of ‘Empathy Theatre’ in human–robot interaction

Abstract

This article introduces the concept of ‘empathy theatre’ to analyse the growing field of Artificial Empathy (AE), as opposed to AI, in social robotics. Drawing initially on lrving Goffman's (1980) dramaturigical metaphors of social interactions in everyday life, alongside Arlie Hochschild's (1979, 2012) critique of Goffman and her foundational work on emotional labour, ‘empathy theatre’ describes the culturally scripted performance of care and concern expected of both human workers and, increasingly, robotic agents in service and care settings. Artificial Empathy (AE) has a surprisingly long history, stretching back to mechanical automata, but recently is being revisited. Roboticists such as Minoru Asada (2015a, 2015b) aggressively pursue the engineered simulation of AE through affect recognition and the mirroring of nonverbal behaviours, and philosophers Paul Dumouchel and Luisa Damiano (2017, 2018) see artificial empathy as a necessary 'performance'. Through engagement with sociology, feminist science and technology studies (STS), and interaction design, this paper's analysis treats AE as a cultural artefact that reveals broader socio-technical investments in choreographing displays of intimacy and trust. It maps AE’s genealogy, engineering ambitions, and sociological consequences, particularly regarding the gendered and racialized dimensions of labour displacement. Drawing on examples including clockwork automata, Minoru Asada’s Affetto, and Cynthia Breazeal’s paradigmatic encounter with Kismet, the article argues that designing empathy into artificial bodies inevitably involves the production of 'empathy theatre', and encourages critical scrutiny of how norms of intimacy become encoded in robotic embodiment.