Designing the Emotions a Robot Should Not Return
■ Mirroring someone's reaction is the shortest path to feeling understood People feel understood when their expression is returned to them. When Hakobukun answered Oshiro's post-shift sigh with a sigh of its own, the empathy feature was doing exactly its job. Imitation acknowledges a state faster than words can.
■ Amplify negative emotions back, and the whole room sinks with them The trouble was that each round strengthened the response. Terashima's sigh made it longer, until Hakobukun let out the deepest sigh in the station. It wasn't reflecting fatigue anymore. It was adding to it, one notch at a time.
■ Conclusion: Decide which emotions to return and which to hold Emotional mirroring should not run everywhere. Fatigue and irritation can be received without being echoed. Even a smile, returned at full size to a forced one, left Terashima uneasy. Choosing what to mirror is the real design work. Empathy is deciding what not to reflect back.
