Roland Rust

Roland Rust and co-author Ming-Hui Huang are experienced education figures whose book The Feeling Economy: How Artificial Intelligence Is Creating the Era of Empathy predicts a brighter future for the growing AI revolution than the chorus of naysayers cautioning against its increasing influence. One can ascribe a progressive point of view to Rust’s and Huang’s ideas, but I can’t stress how important it is we divorce political persuasion from contemplating this issue. The writers believe AI has the wide-ranging potential to improve human interactions on a variety of fronts. It is impressive how strong they argue this point in relatively few pages. Despite its diminutive duration, The Feeling Economy benefits from an abundance of references and research. It never obscures the fine writing present from beginning to end. The writers, despite their academic backgrounds, never “talk” above the heads of their readers and relate several involved concepts to the reader in clear unvarnished terms. This willingness to connect to readers on their level is a principal strength driving this book and will help it endure long past its publication date.

"The Feeling Economy: How Artificial Intelligence is Creating the Era of Empathy" is an engrossing and timely work for several reasons. One of the pre-eminent factors in its merits is the background shared by the co-authors. Roland T. Rust serves as Executive Director for the Center for Excellence in Service at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, a Visiting Chair in Marketing Research at the Erasmus University’s School of Economics, among other important positions and accomplishments. Co-author Ming-Hui Huang is a Distinguished Professor with the Department of Information Management in National Taiwan University’s College of Management. Huang works in close quarters with Rust, as well, as a Distinguished Research Fellow at the University of Maryland’s Center for Excellence in Service. Such luminous resumés only inspire confidence in their thesis. They support their thesis, that developments in artificial intelligence will not strip any remaining humanity from our world but, instead, can strengthen our natural impulses towards empathy. They make a strong case for this superficially improbable argument thanks to a wealth of research that buttresses their points without distorting their findings or embracing confirmation bias. They do discuss the possible downsides arising from AI’s increasing prominence over the coming years, but they do not focus on this as the natural result of technological advancement. The book has a healthy length, but Rust and Huang avoid any digressions or self-indulgence. They are focused on convincing interested readers of the rightness of their ideas and all other considerations are secondary.