AI can read a thousand conversations and still completely miss what it was like to actually be in one. It can pick up on tone, flag emotions, even write an apology that sounds convincing. But it has no idea what it means to actually care about someone.
Empathy isn't just spotting patterns in what people say. It's being there. It's the pause before you respond because you're trying to really hear what someone means. It's caring more about understanding them than being understood yourself.
The danger isn't that AI lacks empathy, it's that we'll start outsourcing ours. We'll let it draft the condolence message, handle the customer complaint, respond to the hard conversation. And the more we do that, the less practice we get at the real thing.