To do the studies, OpenAI turned over almost 40 million interactions its users had withChatGPTto researchers at MIT.
The papers are in-depth and complicated and worth a close read.
Different kinds of interaction produced different results.
Asking the AI chatbot the important questions.© luchschenF via Shutterstock
Lonely users using a voice-based chatbot rather than a text-based one tended to fare worse.
Loneliness is both a cause and effect of problematic internet use.
Research into human emotional dependence on chatbots and its consequences is in its early days.
© MIT Media Labs.
Current AI literacy efforts predominantly focus on technical concepts, whereas they should also incorporate psychosocial dimensions.
The final sentence of the first studys impact section cut to the heart of the problem.
The loneliness epidemic is real and complex.
People are lonely for a lot of different reasons.
Third places like malls, bars, and coffee shopsare vanishingor becoming too expensive to use.
People have migrated a lot of social interaction to the internet.
Living invast suburbsand driving on a highway to get everywherecuts people offfrom each other.
AI didnt do any of this, but it could make it worse.
OpenAI partnered with MIT to conduct these studies, and thats a willingness to engage in the problem.
What worries me is that every business invariably pursues its bottom line.
This is already happening.
The man had a history of depression, and his wifeblamed the bot.
Last year, a mother launched a lawsuit against Character.AI after her sontook his lifewhile chatting with the bot.
There is a market for AI companions.
They can provide an ersatz connection to the lonely.
But they can also induce that feeling of loneliness.
The bots are also programmed by the people selling their services.
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