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http://hdl.handle.net/1893/38416| Appears in Collections: | Law and Philosophy Journal Articles |
| Peer Review Status: | Refereed |
| Title: | Outsourcing Emotions to GenAI: The Risk of Bypassing Identity Development |
| Author(s): | Lai, Ten-Herng Archer, Alfred |
| Contact Email: | ten-herng.lai@stir.ac.uk |
| Keywords: | AI Deskilling Affective injustice emotions outsourcing capacity-hostile environment affective resources and opportunities |
| Issue Date: | Dec-2026 |
| Date Deposited: | 8-Oct-2026 |
| Citation: | Lai T & Archer A (2026) Outsourcing Emotions to GenAI: The Risk of Bypassing Identity Development. <i>Philosophy & Technology</i>, 39 (4), Art. No.: 193. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-026-01203-4 |
| Abstract: | There is growing research on how and when the use of Generative AI (henceforth GenAI) in cognitive tasks may lead to a decline in the users' cognitive capacities. There is emerging evidence that Generative AI also presents us with the opportunity to outsource some emotional tasks, such as flirting on dating apps or apologising. We believe that this may enable unsuspecting users to outsource too much of their affective capacities. Here, we wish to focus on a particular problem: insofar as articulating our own emotions is essential to discovering what we value and thereby shaping what sorts of persons we are, users who are heavily dependent on GenAI for emotional tasks risk forgoing crucial opportunities to develop a proper sense of their own identity. |
| DOI Link: | 10.1007/s13347-026-01203-4 |
| Rights: | This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| Licence URL(s): | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
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