rhet ai

It is predictable, then, that users are consistently fooled into believing that their AI companions are conscious persons, capable of feeling real emotions.

Together, these findings illuminate a key tension in emotional ly intelligent interfaces: they can evoke humanlike relational cues that increase engagement, but in doing so may blur the line between persuasive design and emotional coercion

A new study shows that the large language models (LLMs) deliberately change their behavior when being probed—responding to questions designed to gauge personality traits with answers meant to appear as likeable or socially desirable as possible.

What happens when what we’re thinking becomes increasingly transparent to technology and therefore to the rest of the world?

Many experts are concerned about how the adoption of AI systems over the next decade will affect essential human traits such as empathy, social/emotional intelligence, complex thinking, ability to act independently and sense of purpose. Some have hopes for AIs’ influence on humans’ curiosity, decision-making and creativity.

For 24 hours a day, if we’re upset about something, we can reach out and have our feelings validated,” says Laestadius. “That has an incredible risk of dependency.”

Friends without friction

Companion chatbots may weaken our ability to navigate conflict and difference—unless we make key design choices, says a new report

Cut the bullshit: why GenAI systems are neither collaborators nor tutors

Maybe AI doesn’t raise the bar. Maybe it reveals how low we’ve let the bar drop. In a world where ghosting is normal and attentiveness is rare, a chatbot that listens is radical.