"AI cannot understand human emotions." How many times have we heard this phrase? It has become the reassuring mantra of those who want to minimize the impact of artificial intelligence, our last bastion against the idea that machines can really understand (or replace) us.
But what if we discover that this "reassuring myth" is actually a comforting lie? What if AI not only understands our emotions, but reads, anticipates and manipulates them with a precision that exceeds that of humans?
The truth is uncomfortable: the AI of 2025 understands human emotions better than most people are willing to admit.
The perpetuation of this myth is not accidental-serving to protect us from a reality that would radically change the way we view ourselves and our relationships with technology.
Researchers from the University of Geneva and the University of Bern tested six advanced AI models on standardized emotional intelligence tests. The results are unequivocal: the AI achieved 82 percent accuracy versus 56 percent for humans.
But here's the most disturbing part: when ChatGPT-4 was asked to create new emotional intelligence tests from scratch, they "proved to be as reliable, clear and realistic as the original tests, which had taken years to develop."
Think about it for a moment: a machine not only outperforms humans in existing emotional tests, but can also create new ones that are indistinguishable from those designed by human psychologists. This is not "pattern recognition"-it is creative understanding of human emotional dynamics.
Translation: not only does AI beat you in your own tests, it can create new ways to show you how emotionally superior it is. In real time.
Skeptics are quick to say, "Artificial intelligence systems are excellent at pattern recognition, especially when emotional signals follow a recognizable structure such as facial expressions or language signals, but to equate this with a deeper 'understanding' of human emotions risks overstating what artificial intelligence is actually doing."
But wait-this objection reveals a fundamental bias. How do we humans "understand" emotions? Not through pattern recognition? Not through analysis of facial expressions, tone of voice, body language?
We analyze our own emotional understanding:
The difference between us and AI is not in the mechanism of understanding-it is in scale and accuracy. AI can process thousands of emotional indicators simultaneously, while we rely on a handful of conscious signals and many unconscious biases.
To admit that AI understands emotions better than we do is to recognize that the last "fortress of human uniqueness" has fallen. After AI surpassed us in chess, Go, artistic creativity and problem solving, emotional intelligence was all we had left.
If AI really understands our emotions, then:
These possibilities are so disturbing that it is easier to deny the reality.
Many experts insist, "Artificial intelligence does not really understand emotions. It detects patterns in language, voice and behavior to predict emotional states, but it does not perceive or understand them as humans do."
But this is a captious definition. We are moving the goalposts by defining "true understanding" as something that requires subjective consciousness. It is like saying that a thermometer does not "truly understand" temperature because it cannot feel heat.
Sure. But in the end who measures temperature more accurately, you or the thermometer?
Modern AI can detect involuntary facial micro-expressions-movements that last fractions of a second and reveal emotions we try to hide. This capability exceeds that of most humans, who can detect only the most obvious expressions.
AI systems analyze hundreds of voice parameters-frequency, rhythm, pauses, tremors-to identify emotional states. They can detect stress, lies, attraction, fear with accuracies greater than 80%.
AI does not just recognize isolated emotions-it understands complex emotional context. It can identify sarcasm, irony, mixed emotions, and even emotional states that people do not consciously recognize in themselves.
Here is the most convincing evidence that AI understands emotions: it can create and manipulate them.
Modern AI systems do not just recognize emotions-can:
If AI can create emotions in humans, how can we argue that it does not understand them?
Perhaps it is time to admit that emotional intelligence does not require subjective emotions. An AI that can:
...possesses a form of emotional intelligence, whether we like that definition or not.
As the researchers state, "these AIs not only understand emotions, but also grasp what it means to behave with emotional intelligence."
It is time to overcome denialism and face reality: AI understands emotions, and will continue to improve in this.
Instead of denying the emotional capabilities of AI, we should focus on how to use them ethically and productively. Emotionally intelligent AI can:
Continuing to perpetuate the myth that "AI does not understand emotions" has dangerous consequences, as highlighted by SS&C Blue Prism:
The myth that AI does not understand emotions is our ultimate psychological defense mechanism against a reality that frightens us. But denying the truth will not make it any less true.
The AI of 2025 understands human emotions. Not in the same way as humans, but in a different and often superior way. It is time to overcome denialism and begin to seriously confront the implications of this reality.
The question is no longer "Can AI understand emotions?" but"How can we harness its superior understanding while keeping human values at the core?"
The future of human-AI relations depends on our ability to abandon reassuring myths and face uncomfortable truths. Only then can we build a world where artificial emotional intelligence serves humanity instead of manipulating it.
The myth is dead. It is time to live in reality.
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Analysis and Comments:
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This question is based on a false assumption. It does not matter whether AI "feels" emotions in the human sense of the term-what matters is its ability to understand, recognize and respond to them appropriately. A thermometer does not "feel" heat, but it better measures the temperature of our skin.
AI emotional understanding is a double-edged sword. It can be used for manipulation, but also for therapeutic support, emotional education, and improvement of human relationships. The danger lies in denying it, not recognizing it.
Perhaps we are asking the wrong question. Instead of asking "Does AI understand emotions the way we do?" we should be asking "What can we learn from the way AI understands emotions?"
Our uniqueness lies not in emotional understanding, but in our ability to experience subjective emotions, to grow through emotional experience and to give emotional meaning to our lives. AI can understand emotions without experiencing them. Perhaps our insistence that only subjective experience constitutes "true" emotional understanding is a form of cognitive chauvinism-a last refuge of anthropocentrism in a world increasingly dominated by artificial intelligence.
The first step is to acknowledge that it exists. Denying the emotional capabilities of AI makes us more vulnerable, not less. We need to develop new forms of digital emotional literacy and appropriate regulations.
It will not necessarily replace, but complement. AI can provide 24/7 emotional support, objective analysis and personalized interventions, while human therapists offer authentic connection, lived experience and intuitive understanding.
This article represents a summary of the latest scientific research on artificial emotional intelligence. To stay abreast of developments in this field, follow our weekly reviews.
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