Special Affect: An Empathy Machine Otherwise

Chapter 5 focuses on Embodied Labs, an LA-headquartered start-up founded in 2016 that creates VR experiences for professional caregivers who work with elderly people and their families. These VR experiences are premised on the logic, critiqued in the previous chapter, that embodying another will yield empathetic insight. However, this chapter asks whether an empathy machine otherwise is possible—can the fantasy of being another person be implemented with care? Drawing on the time spent with cofounder Carrie Shaw and her coworkers, this chapter suggests that deploying VR such that it does not replace the need to be with and care for others but rather augments such being and caring is one potential strategy for pursuing VR’s fantasy of being a good technology.