Equipping AI-decision-support-systems with emotional capabilities? Ethical perspectives

It is important to accompany the research on Emotional Artificial Intelligence with ethical oversight. Previous publications on the ethics of Emotional Artificial Intelligence emphasize the importance of subjecting every (possible) type of Emotional Artificial Intelligence to separate ethical considerations. That’s why, in this contribution I will focus on a particular subset of AI systems: AI-driven Decision-Support Systems (AI-DSS), and ask whether it would be advisable from an ethical perspective to equip these AI systems with emotional capacities. I will show, on one hand, equipping AI-DSS with emotional capabilities offers great opportunities, as they open the possibility to prevent emotionally biased decisions – but that it also amplifies the ethical challenges already posed by emotionally-incapable AI-DSS. Yet, if their introduction is accompanied by a broad social discourse and prepared by suitable measures to address these challenges, I argue, nothing should fundamentally stand in the way of equipping AI-DSS with emotional capabilities.