Dr. Michelle Zhou: Empathic AI is Real and It's Here - But We Need Everyone Involved!

Much of the AI you hear about these days is about large language models trained to look for commonalities and best next guesses. This causes a lot of fear around how AI will be abused - Will the bots take over? Are the inputs unbiased and accurate? Will my teenager cheat on his school essay? 

But we can take a more thoughtful and opportunistic view of AI, specifically in areas where we can teach AI empathy. Yes, I said teach AI empathy. My guest today, Dr. Michelle Zhou, and I discuss how cognitive AI is different from large learning model AI, how these systems learn empathy, and how they empower both companies and individuals without the resources for expensive solutions. We discuss why empathy is actually even more necessary, not less, in the age of AI. And most importantly, we chat about why everyone needs to get involved in AI - why we need to "democratize it", as Dr. Zhou states, in order to be more inclusive and learn how to respond to a variety of needs and people. Dr. Zhou reveals why she believes basic customer service chatbots are one of the worst uses of AI out there!

To access the episode transcript, please click on the episode title at www.TheEmpathyEdge.com 

Key Takeaways:

• AI currently looks for commonalities in people and data, as it learns to be more empathetic, we need to teach it how to recognize differences, not just those similarities. 
• The more we all interact with AI, the more that AI is going to be smarter about understanding individual differences.
• There is a time and place for canned responses by a ChatBot, but often people will respond better if there is a specific response to their unique questions and needs. 

"In order for AI to be inclusive, then we need more people to be there. If there are more people participating, then you have more diversity. The more involvement from a human side, the more inclusive AI can be." —  Dr. Michelle Zhou

About Michelle Zhou, Co-Founder & CEO, Juji Inc.

Dr. Michelle Zhou is a Co-Founder and CEO of Juji, Inc., an Artificial Intelligence (AI) company located in Silicon Valley, specializing in building cognitive conversational AI technologies and solutions that enable the creation and adoption of empathic and empathetic AI agents. Prior to starting Juji, Michelle led the User Systems and Experience Research (USER) group at IBM Research – Almaden and then the IBM Watson Group. Michelle's expertise is in the interdisciplinary area of intelligent user interaction (IUI), including conversational AI systems and personality analytics. She is an inventor of the IBM Watson Personality Insights and has led the research and development of at least a dozen products in her areas of expertise. Michelle has published over 100 peer-reviewed, refereed scientific articles and 45+ patents. Michelle is the Editor-in-Chief of ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems (TiiS) and an Associate Editor of ACM Transactions on Intelligent Systems and Technology (TIST). She received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Columbia University and is an ACM Distinguished Scientist. 

Dr. Zhou has been featured in Axios, Fortune, New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, and spoke at Fortune Brainstorm Tech last year.

Connect with Michelle Zhou 

Website: https://juji.io/ 

X: https://twitter.com/senseofsnow2011 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mxzhou/   

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