It’s stunning how poor people often are at reading each other’s emotions. It seems more a lack of ability than of concern. If you can discern the meaning of facial expressions and body language, you have a distinct advantage in life–and greater responsibility, whether you accept it or not.

Smart machines are said to be dumb at this skill, suggesting that if you want a safe long-term career you should opt to work in the area of emotional intelligence. That may be true but not likely for long. AI won’t need to be anything near conscious to become adept at knowing how we feel. There really don’t need to be any great breakthroughs for AI to develop emotional IQ; time and investment will make it so. The question is, will machines be responsible with this knowledge?

In a Korea Herald article, historian Yuval Noah Harari speaks to this issue. The opening:

It is no news that machines have come to largely replace physical labor and computers surpass human beings in processing data. But in the future, the development of artificial intelligence may render humans obsolete even in the realm of emotional intelligence, according to Yuval Harari.

“It is true that in one sense, AI doesn’t even come close to human emotion since it has no consciousness or mind and doesn’t feel anything,” said Harari at Tuesday’s opening ceremony of the 2030 Eco Forum, organized by Green Fund and held at the Korea Press Center. Harari is a history professor and author of the international bestseller “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.”

Yet, AI may excel at detecting the emotional needs of human beings and reacting appropriately to them, Harari said.

“What biology tells us today is that emotions are not some spiritual experience, but the outcome of biochemical processes in the body.

“AI today is able to diagnose your personality and emotional state by looking at your face and recognizing tiny muscle movements. It can tell whether you are tired, excited, angry, joyful, in love … it can tell these things even though AI itself doesn’t feel anger or love.”

In the future, therefore, AI could “drive humans out of the job market and make many humans completely useless, from an economic perspective” in areas where human interaction was previously considered crucial, Harari said.•