Welcome to the forefront of conversational AI as we explore the fascinating world of AI chatbots in our dedicated blog series. Discover the latest advancements, applications, and strategies that propel the evolution of chatbot technology. From enhancing customer interactions to streamlining business processes, these articles delve into the innovative ways artificial intelligence is shaping the landscape of automated conversational agents. Whether you’re a business owner, developer, or simply intrigued by the future of interactive technology, join us on this journey to unravel the transformative power and endless possibilities of AI chatbots.
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SUMMARY
This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.
Artificial intelligence-powered chatbots are mainly being used these days to help in doing various tasks, such as analyzing spreadsheets, or searching the internet.
But there’s a subset of people who use AI chatbots for a rather intriguing purpose: providing that user with life insights or companionship.
There’s a rather slippery slope in saying this, however, because chatbot therapists do exist, and some people have gotten more attached to their chatbot over time.
But I feel the need to point out that AI friends and AI-enabled therapy is, for most people, a sham construct, one that may cause problems down the line.
AI takes tons of data and uses it to create best-guess responses that a human would think makes sense. AI chatbots, then, are supposed to get “better” at responding by taking a person’s inputs and incorporating that as new information to “personalize” the experience of interacting with it.
A personalized AI chatbot, therefore, just knows how to respond to your preferences, but doesn’t understand what it’s saying, really.
Of course, with enough data and training, you can make a chatbot persuasive enough to persuade even you. The Decoder, in 2024, outlined a study in which a personalized chatbot can be persuasive enough to change a person’s mind, and likely even be more persuasive than another human being.
However, that chatbot? It is still going to tell you what you want to hear, because that’s how it’s been designed to perform.
The New York Times published a report on August 12 about how ChatGPT can act like a “sycophantic improv machine” that validates people’s neuroses.
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported on the case of an autistic man who was driven to believe his delusions by ChatGPT… and which ChatGPT “admitted” to later on.
As such, what do sycophantic responses and a lack of self-reflection get you? Narcissism. In this case, writer Derek Thompson calls it narcissism at scale.
AI isn’t your friend because it doesn’t know what friendship is.
AI tells you what you want to hear, but life — and true interactions with people — are much messier and harder to navigate than the confines of a screen.
I will concede that an AI response with the right prompting can be helpful, especially if you’re trying to find out something like, “How can I start a conversation without offending someone?” If you have a bad habit, and it has information that states you have a bad habit, it will only offer advice to help you fight against it if you give it a prompt that elicits that kind of self-reflective response. In other words, AI only does what you tell it to, and haphazardly at best.
True friends, and the best therapists, will fight you or question you just hard enough to have you reason out things for yourself if you don’t have the self-reflection needed to get there by your lonesome.
Maybe AI can help you out when you’ve stumbled upon a moment of clarity and need some extra analytical input on a situation, but expect AI to only give you what you want out of it, not necessarily what you need.
To get what you need out of life’s social interactions, I say with some reservations — like finding trusted people to practice with and not AI bots — that most folks should get out there and practice talking and learning about yourself by being with people. Just be aware that you’re not always going to get everything right, and believe you can bring out a better version of yourself by trying. – Rappler.com
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