Colloquium

Dr. Desmond Ong, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin

Title: Integrating Affective Science Theory with Artificial Intelligence in Empathy and Appraisals

Abstract: People spend much of their lives reasoning about how others feel, receiving and providing empathy, and regulating others’ emotions. Recently, however, AI agents have shown surprising competence in these very human domains, such that they can even seem to offer empathy and social support. I will share empirical evidence leveraging these AI developments to advance affective science and applications: First, I will show how studying artificial empathy (or what I call “LLMpathy”) can yield novel insights for how we understand human empathy. Second, I will highlight how we are integrating decades of psychological knowledge about appraisals into a neurosymbolic model to offer targeted reappraisals for emotion regulation. Finally, I will share some research and future directions on using LLMs in a psychologically wise and safe manner to develop interventions. These are exemplars of my research vision, which is to derive psychological insights from AI and distill psychological theory into AI, creating a virtuous cycle that both advances our science and informs real-world applications to improve well-being.

Please join us at 3:30 PM for cookies, coffee, and conversation! A reception will follow the session in the Psychology Lounge.