#HumanCenteredDesign

A new wave of research warns that AI capable of humanlike emotions may blunt how people view real workers. In five experiments, psychologists found that emotionally adept machines can lead to what they call assimilation-induced dehumanization, where humans are deemed less worthy of empathy. The findings have immediate implications for Thailand, where service industries employ a large segment of the workforce and rely on genuine human connection.

Thailand’s service economy is poised to grow further as AI tools expand in hotels, tour operators, call centers, and retail. With roughly 46% of workers in service roles, emotional labor remains central to job performance and livelihoods. Policymakers, business leaders, and tech developers must consider how AI’s social presence could affect worker dignity and customer expectations.

A multi-experiment psychology study finds that interacting with autonomous agents that display socio-emotional skills can make people judge those machines as more humanlike — and, worryingly, judge other humans as less human and more acceptable to mistreat. The research, published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology and available via the London School of Economics repository, uses five controlled experiments to show a chain from perceiving emotional ability in AI to lower “humanness” ratings of people, and finally to real choices that disadvantage human workers (e.g., preferring a company linked with poor working conditions or withholding a small donation to support staff) (PsyPost coverage; study PDF; journal record).

Groundbreaking psychological research has uncovered an unsettling paradox at the heart of artificial intelligence development. When machines display emotional intelligence that closely mirrors human capabilities, people begin viewing actual humans as less worthy of compassion and humane treatment. This phenomenon, documented through five rigorous experiments published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, poses immediate risks for Thailand’s service-dependent economy, where millions of workers rely on human emotional connection for their livelihoods.