As humans, we attribute human characteristics to robots. We add, as it were, features that we think are correlated. So, if a robot “smiles,” we attribute emotions to it, even though we know that a robot cannot feel emotions.
The release of automatism in us in the form of a reaction, e.g. to a smile, also triggers other mechanisms, such as empathy. Here, however, it has nothing to do with feeling the robot’s emotions, which it does not have. It’s more like empathizing with an imaginary human being symbolized by a robot. We ourselves act like robots that trigger specific lines of code for a given reaction – in this case, empathy. A relationship with a robot is quite similar to a relationship with a narcissistic person. He or she can know emotions and react to them, but will not feel them.
