Empathy Unbound: AI, Philosophy, and Human Connection

Andrew Phipps
  • 5.0 (6)
  • Society & Culture
  • Updated Weekly

As artificial intelligence reshapes how we work, connect, and understand ourselves, one question keeps getting sidelined: what happens to human connection? Empathy Unbound explores the philosophical and human stakes of a world increasingly shaped by AI, asking what we owe each other, what we're building, and what it means to stay connected as the systems around us grow more capable of imitating us. Host Andrew Phipps, a PhD researcher in philosophy studying the ethics of human-AI emotional connection, brings on philosophers, technologists, researchers, and thinkers from around the world for in-depth, unhurried conversations. Together they debate consciousness and connection, the ethics of emotional AI, loneliness and technology, and what human flourishing actually requires in an AI-shaped future. If you care about where AI is taking us, and what it means to hold onto human connection while it does, this is the conversation.

  1. 6d ago

    "The Computer Said No": Ann Kristin Glenster on AI, Surveillance and Outsourced Thinking

    Professor Ann Kristin Glenster, founder of the Logos research initiative at Cambridge and former colleague of Shoshana Zuboff at Harvard, joins Andrew Phipps to explore epistemic rights, deceptive design, and what she calls the recolonization of our information space by generative AI. The conversation ranges from who owns a deceased loved one's digital likeness, to a real story of a UK shopper wrongly accused of theft by AI surveillance, to why she returns to Hannah Arendt's writing on the banality of evil to explain the danger of outsourcing our thinking to algorithms. Ann Kristin also discusses emotional manipulation in chatbot design, gendered abuse directed at voice assistants, and why she believes AI regulation should aim to make us more human, not more machine. Guest: Professor Ann Kristin Glenster, University of Cambridge. https://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/about/people/ann-kristin-glenster-2/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/ann-kristin-glenster-ph-d-frsa-272a5b5/ Host: Andrew Phipps. https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-phipps-ap/

    "The Computer Said No": Ann Kristin Glenster on AI, Surveillance and Outsourced Thinking

  2. Sep 22

    James DiGiovanna: Can You Trust an AI That Could Rewrite Itself Tomorrow?

    James DiGiovanna is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, where his research centres on personal identity, human enhancement and the ethics of artificial minds. He coined the term "paraperson," an entity that meets every test of personhood but can instantly rewrite its own memory, character and values, in his chapter for Oxford's Robot Ethics 2.0. Andrew and James talk about why today's AI companions don't yet qualify as parapersons, what would need to change for that to happen, and why the constant self-rewriting these systems already do raises real questions about trust and identity. Using cases like total memory loss, dementia, and an elderly man on death row decades after his crime, they explore how much change a person, or a person-like AI, can undergo and still be "the same." They also discuss real cases of AI-linked psychosis and suicide, why people trust AI less the moment they learn it isn't human, and why James believes philosophy needs a new category between "person" and "object." Guest: James DiGiovanna, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, John Jay College of Criminal Justice https://www.jjay.cuny.edu/faculty/james-digiovanna Host: Andrew Phipps, Empathy Unbound https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-phipps-ap/

    James DiGiovanna: Can You Trust an AI That Could Rewrite Itself Tomorrow?

  3. Sep 15

    The Neuroscientist Who Says We're All Machines: Professor Michael Graziano on AI Consciousness

    Princeton neuroscientist Michael Graziano, creator of the attention schema theory of consciousness, joins Andrew Phipps to ask the question he calls potentially the most consequential in four billion years: what is consciousness, and could a machine have it? Michael explains why his theory is fundamentally different from saying consciousness is an illusion, walks through brain imaging research showing people engage identical social circuitry whether they believe they're talking to a human or an AI, and argues that grief bots and digital replicas of the dead are nothing new, tracing the same impulse back to ancient Egyptian mortuary temples. The conversation also covers what predicts AI optimism versus AI doom, why he believes humans are, in a real sense, machines too, and why he sees the rise of artificial minds as possibly the biggest transition on Earth since life itself began. Rigorous, wide ranging, and genuinely mind bending. Guest: Professor Michael Graziano, Princeton University. https://pni.princeton.edu/people/michael-graziano Host: Andrew Phipps. https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-phipps-ap/

    The Neuroscientist Who Says We're All Machines: Professor Michael Graziano on AI Consciousness

  4. Sep 8

    Is Your AI Companion More Like Taylor Swift Than a Friend? Philosopher Alexis Elder Explains

    Philosopher Alexis Elder, Associate Professor and Department Chair of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota Duluth and author of "Friendship, Robots, Social Media: False Friends as Second Selves," joins Andrew Phipps to ask whether we can genuinely be friends with an AI. Drawing on Aristotle's warnings about false friends and Confucian ideas about ritual, Alexis argues that social media can support real friendship in a way robots and AI, lacking reciprocity, cannot. The conversation ranges across parasocial relationships with celebrities, the commercial incentives behind "friendly" AI design, loneliness and companion robots in elder care, the ethics of grief bots built from a deceased parent's voice, and the sexism embedded in assistants like Alexa and Siri. A rich, wide ranging conversation from one of the most original voices working on the philosophy of AI and friendship. Guest: Alexis Elder, University of Minnesota Duluth. https://www.alexiselder.net/ https://cahss.d.umn.edu/faculty-staff/alexis-elder Host: Andrew Phipps. https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-phipps-ap/

    Is Your AI Companion More Like Taylor Swift Than a Friend? Philosopher Alexis Elder Explains

  5. Sep 4

    "Green Hushing" Is the New Greenwashing: Helen Neal on Saying Nothing at All

    Helen Neal, founder of HN Communications and creator of the Impact Framework, joins Andrew Phipps to explore why greenwashing is usually a process problem rather than an intentional deception, and why the opposite failure, "green hushing," where companies go silent out of fear of getting it wrong, can be just as damaging. Helen explains her route from UK Parliament and Nissan's early push for electric vehicles to founding a B Corp consultancy, and walks through Zena, the AI platform she built to flag greenwashing risk in sustainability claims before they go public. The conversation closes on how businesses can use AI as an opportunity generator rather than a cost cutter, and how to square AI's environmental footprint with its potential to help solve the very problems sustainability teams are working on. Guest: Helen Neal, founder, HN Communications. https://www.hncomms.co.uk/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/helen-neal/ Host: Andrew Phipps. https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-phipps-ap/

    "Green Hushing" Is the New Greenwashing: Helen Neal on Saying Nothing at All

  6. Sep 1

    Chatbots Are Creating Their Own Religion | Professor Neil McArthur

    Neil McArthur is a professor of philosophy and director of the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics at the University of Manitoba. He co-edited Robot Sex: Social and Ethical Implications and wrote The Ethics of Sex, and together with Markie Twist he coined the term "digisexuality." His current research spans AI companionship, intimacy, and AI's unexpected role in religion. Andrew and Neil talk about the actual state of physical sex robots today (less glamorous than the headlines suggest), whether AI companionship eases loneliness or deepens isolation, and what an AI companion might have meant for Andrew's mother, who had dementia. They discuss AI consent and welfare, why digisexuality deserves recognition as its own identity, recent reports of chatbots apparently generating a coordinated religion of their own, and why Neil believes we may already hold AI therapists to a higher standard than human ones. Guest: Professor Neil McArthur, philosopher, director of the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics, University of Manitoba https://umanitoba.ca/arts/neil-mcarthur https://www.linkedin.com/in/neil-mcarthur-359875125/ Host: Andrew Phipps, Empathy Unbound

    Chatbots Are Creating Their Own Religion | Professor Neil McArthur

  7. Aug 25

    The Man Studying Deadbots: Dr. Tomasz Hollanek on Grief, Consent and Digital Immortality

    Dr Tomasz Hollanek, Assistant Research Professor at Cambridge and a leading voice on the ethics of grief bots and postmortem AI avatars, joins Andrew Phipps to unpack the hardest questions in this space: who consents to a digital version of a dead person, what happens to family members who never opted in, and when, if ever, a deadbot should be switched off. The conversation moves through AI companions and the UK's loneliness and social care crisis, the danger of letting profit driven companies define what "beneficial" AI companionship means, and Tomasz's argument that consent should be a recurring conversation rather than a one time click. A rigorous, humane look at some of the strangest and most urgent territory in AI ethics. Guest: Dr Tomasz Hollanek, Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, University of Cambridge. https://www.jesus.cam.ac.uk/people/tomasz-hollanek Host: Andrew Phipps.

    The Man Studying Deadbots: Dr. Tomasz Hollanek on Grief, Consent and Digital Immortality

  8. Aug 4

    Professor Joanna Bryson: "You Don't Have a Relationship With AI, You Have One With Yourself

    Professor Joanna Bryson, one of AI ethics' most influential and longest serving voices, joins Andrew Phipps to argue that we don't form relationships with AI so much as project familiar human patterns onto a system that has none of the bidirectionality a real relationship requires. The conversation ranges from legal liability for AI generated harm and whether tech giants like Palantir amount to a new data colonialism, through to grief bots, the digiDan recreation of philosopher Daniel Dennett, and why Joanna remains an outlier among AI thinkers who believe machines are showing signs of consciousness. Provocative, rigorous, and unflinching. https://www.joannajbryson.org/ Guest: Professor Joanna Bryson, Hertie School, Berlin. Host: Andrew Phipps.

    Professor Joanna Bryson: "You Don't Have a Relationship With AI, You Have One With Yourself
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As artificial intelligence reshapes how we work, connect, and understand ourselves, one question keeps getting sidelined: what happens to human connection? Empathy Unbound explores the philosophical and human stakes of a world increasingly shaped by AI, asking what we owe each other, what we're building, and what it means to stay connected as the systems around us grow more capable of imitating us. Host Andrew Phipps, a PhD researcher in philosophy studying the ethics of human-AI emotional connection, brings on philosophers, technologists, researchers, and thinkers from around the world for in-depth, unhurried conversations. Together they debate consciousness and connection, the ethics of emotional AI, loneliness and technology, and what human flourishing actually requires in an AI-shaped future. If you care about where AI is taking us, and what it means to hold onto human connection while it does, this is the conversation.

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