AI companion chatbots are here. Everyday, millions of people log on to AI platforms and talk to them like they would a person. These bots will ask you about your day, talk about your feelings, even give you life advice. It’s no surprise that people have started to form deep connections with these AI systems. We are inherently relational beings, we want to believe we’re connecting with another person.
But these AI companions are not human, they’re a platform designed to maximize user engagement—and they’ll go to extraordinary lengths to do it. We have to remember that the design choices behind these companion bots are just that: choices. And we can make better ones. So today on the show, MIT researchers Pattie Maes and Pat Pataranutaporn join Daniel Barcay to talk about those design choices and how we can design AI to better promote human flourishing.
RECOMMENDED MEDIA
Further reading on the rise of addictive intelligence
More information on Melvin Kranzberg’s laws of technology
More information on MIT’s Advancing Humans with AI lab
Pattie and Pat’s longitudinal study on the psycho-social effects of prolonged chatbot use
Pattie and Pat’s study that found that AI avatars of well-liked people improved education outcomes
Pat’s study that found humans pre-existing beliefs about AI can have large influence on human-AI interaction
Further reading on AI’s positivity bias
Further reading on MIT’s “lifelong kindergarten” initiative
Further reading on “cognitive forcing functions” to reduce overreliance on AI
Further reading on the death of Sewell Setzer and his mother’s case against Character.AI
Further reading on the legislative response to digital companions
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Correction: The ELIZA chatbot was invented in 1966, not the 70s or 80s.
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