ARTIFICIAL AFFECTIONS: AI & THE POWER OF HUMAN EMOTION

NEWS!

Dates
17-22 February 2025

Location
IAAD. Turin

THEME AREA

Friends, lovers, and synthetic soulmates: AI in human bonds

As AI features evolve, they hold the potential to shape the dynamics of our closest relationships, from best friends to family members. We can create applications that enhance compatibility, empathy, love and shared experiences, enabling new forms of intimacy, trust, and understanding between individuals. How can designers ensure that AI fosters genuine relationships without diminishing the serendipity and humanity of love and friendship?

WORKSHOP

Friends. Confidantes. Lovers. Assistants. Guides. Slaves. Through hands-on activities and critical discussions, this workshop will explore what role AI could play within the intersection of technology and human emotion, be it bridging emotional gaps, fostering connections or redefining intimacy in human relationships. This workshop invites students, and curious minds, to explore this fascinating frontier where AI with all its potential and shortcomings, will continue to gain prominence in our lives. Emotions, integral to our cognition, influence how we perceive, decide, and connect. In a world where technology increasingly mediates our daily interactions, how might we use AI as a tool to nurture our emotional landscape rather than allowing it to undermine it?

Other key questions we’ll explore: How can AI become a catalyst for deeper emotional bonds without compromising the authenticity of human relationships? How might we harness AI to deepen rather than dilute our human connections? What role can AI play in nurturing long-term relationships and building trust? Where should we draw the line between helpful facilitation and excessive technological mediation? How can we design AI systems that enhance rather than replace human intuition and empathy? What are the limits of artificial empathy, and how do we preserve the essence of human spontaneity? By joining this workshop participants will conceptualize AI-human interaction settings, reenact explorative emotional scenarios, and debate ethical dilemmas— emerging with fresh perspectives on AI’s transformative role in human connection.

TEAM LEADER

Vladimir Soto

Vladimir Soto has provided creative guidance for more than 20 years for a variety of clients, from Fortune 100 to not-for-profit companies, in New York City, San Francisco, Mexico, Sri Lanka and Italy. He has worked in multinational advertising agencies in Madison Avenue, nimbler creative houses and for technology companies focused on silicon valley. He has taught and lectured at various universities and academies, among them The Academy of Art University in San Francisco, California, Tiltan College in Israel, Politecnico di Torino, IED and IAAD in Italy. He is currently principal and creative director of Bebooming, a strategic creativity boutique based in Turin, where along with his team they are exploring the role AI can play in brand communication and marketing.

RESULTS

How Can We Ensure That AI Fosters Genuine Relationships Without Diminishing the Serendipity and Humanity of Love and Friendships?

Cultivating a Human-Centered Relationship with AI. Our relationship with AI is not predefined it is shaped by how we choose to engage with it. If we approach it passively, it risks becoming a forced marriage predictable, unchallenging, and ultimately unfulfilling. To break free from this, we must cultivate intention in our interactions, ensuring that AI complements rather than replaces our human bonds. Curiosity fuels deeper engagement, serendipity invites unexpected moments of growth, and mutuality ensures that we don’t outsource emotional depth to machines. If we meet AI with openness, playfulness, and a willingness to be challenged, we can transform our relationship with it moving from passive consumption to active co-creation.