The neuroscience of algorithmic suffering

The question of whether AI possesses human-like experience is perhaps misleading, as it’s too abstract to tackle as a whole. Indeed humans exhibit many layers of complex feelings and emotions, so it is probably better to explore, one by one, different human traits. For example, recent studies have shown some AI chatbots can apparently show more empathy towards coworkers than their own peers. And yes, we know some people lack empathy; perhaps that isn’t the news. However, one common trait of humans everywhere is their capacity to suffer. That is the aspect on which we will focus on this paper: how is human suffering different or similar to AI?

Suffering has captured the attention of AI research in the past. Here we go one step further, giving it a neuroscientific revision along with the groundings in Bayesian inference, behavioral psychology, and theories of consciousness.