Plantimate: Personality Augmentation for Fostering Empathy Towards Plants

Our interactions with the ecosystems around us have devolved largely to anthropocentric, transactional and utilitarian modalities. Non-Human life forms, particularly plants and ecology are perceived as resources rather than a legitimate entity imbibed with life. The paper expounds on an ethical treatment of plants grounded in empathy. We establish this practice by creating anthropomorphic meaning around plants to generate compassion in participating human actors thereby employing it as a tool for conservation and meaningful co-existence.