Talking to Robots (woman, people)

[Sand&Salt]

I accidently landed on this NYT website about Artificial Intelligence and spent some time in a conversation with a robot, just to see how it worked. If you're bored, you might find it fun. I put this in psychology 'cause I wondered WHY I found it intriguing....


What It Takes To Be Human (Paid Post by UBS From The New York Times)




If you were really lonely, you might get hooked.

[Lovehound]

Not quite related, but as an iPhone owner I often play with Siri (the phone's voice interactive artificial intelligence). (Siri is mostly powered by computers at Apple and gets noticeably more stupid when you are out of Internet contact.)

My favorite question has always been, "What is the meaning of life?" The answer constantly evolves or has many answers, all of them amusing!

[RP2C]

I take two things away from that article and the whole conversations-with-AI in general. The story showed what was supposed to look like a 23 y/o woman as the "interface. I recall watching something about this type of thing where subjects were engaging in AI conversations with "humanoid" figures. The researches found a level of "life-like" at which it just became "creepy" to the subjects. Something "suggesting "human" was approachable, but a little too human creeped people out (for lack of a better term). That might be a distraction from rather than a facilitator of conversation.
Second, I believe that some people might enjoy interacting with AI since they can partially be in control of both ends of the conversation and interpret responses to their own liking. I say this because the non-verbal cues that we all (in the absence of debilitating psychological condition) use during conversation are not there. The participant might interpret responses as he or she wishes since they did not come with any non-verbal punctuation/nuance.

[MillennialUrbanist]

Originally Posted by RP2C

The story showed what was supposed to look like a 23 y/o woman as the "interface. I recall watching something about this type of thing where subjects were engaging in AI conversations with "humanoid" figures. The researches found a level of "life-like" at which it just became "creepy" to the subjects. Something "suggesting "human" was approachable, but a little too human creeped people out (for lack of a better term). That might be a distraction from rather than a facilitator of conversation.

What you're describing sounds like Uncanny Valley (see link). It's exactly that: when something looks "almost human but not human" (i.e. uncanny), it makes people uncomfortable. The Uncanny Valley happens with robots quite a bit. It's also been observed in people's reactions to prosthetic limbs. Science today can make fully functional, realistic-looking prosthetics, but making them look identical to a natural limb is still impossible. So when a prosthetic limb looks "too" realistic, people often react with apprehension, because they sense something is off about it. Comparable to how they react to a deformed or missing body part. But a metal, robotic-looking prosthetic limb is often described as "cool" or "interesting", or gets no reaction. (Famous person note: Senator-elect Tammy Duckworth has the latter type of prosthetic legs.)

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley