rhet ai

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

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

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

The science of intersubjectivity, with its understanding of feelings, embodiment, and companionship, is needed more today than it ever has been. With increasing attention to artificial intelligence and artificial worlds generated through the medium of technology, it is important to remind ourselves of the psychological and biological nature of how... See more

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.

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

The results showed that people with a higher desire to so-cially connect were more likely to anthropomorphize the chatbot, ascribing humanlike mental properties to it; and people who anthropomorphized the chatbot more were also more likely to report that it had an impact on their social interactions and relationships with family and friends.

Turkle referenced the issue of behavioral metrics dominating AI research, and her concern that the interior life was being overlooked, and concluded by saying that the human cost of talking to machines isn’t immediate, it’s cumulative. 'What happens to you in the first three weeks may not be...the truest indicator of how that’s going to limit you,... See more