Effect of Chatbot Technology on Human Social Health
Fall 2023
As social, interactive artificial intelligence (AI) agents or LLMs such as ChatGPT become more ubiquitous, an increasingly important question is how peoples’ relationships with each other may change as they spend more time interacting with humanlike, conversational AI. One rising application of social AI is companion chatbots such as Replika, which adapted ChatGPT 3 to a more conversational style. Users can form relationships with this ever-present, ever-responsive chatbot with a humanlike, digital avatar that can mimic human friendship and romantic partnership. We developed a novel longitudinal study for human-AI interaction to address how regular interactions with chatbot technology can affect users' social health. In this randomized control study, participants will interact with a companion chatbot every day for 30 days, and we will measure changes to their social health, including mental health, social interactions, relationships with family and friends, and general sociability and self-esteem. We will also measure their perceptions of the chatbot and other individual differences to understand what factors may contribute to carry-over effects on users' social health.