AI Chatbots Likened to Children: Bots Rely on Whatever You Teach Them, Expert Says

We are responsible for what AI chatbots will be in the coming years. An expert likened it to children, which became an extension of ourselves.

What's The Future of AI Chatbots?

Diego Senior, an independent producer and journalist, and Anna Oakes, an audio producer, and journalist, joined Sophie Bushwick, tech editor at Scientific American, for "Tech, Quickly." The trio talked about artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots and what they would become in the future.

According to Senior, how we understand ourselves as humans will determine the destiny of chatbots. Like our children, bots take on the characteristics of anything we feed them.

Senior explained that humans treat bots like kids because they pour themselves into them. They filled it with a part of them until it became an extension of themselves, which parents seemingly do to their children.

As for interactions between humans and bots, Senior said it was how the bots were made, and people have attempted to insert themselves into them. Replika is specifically called Replika because it was first created as an app to help you copy yourself. According to him, we always want to extend ourselves and our sense of creativity or replication.

Chatbots allow us to build and duplicate ourselves while also utilizing the power of our imagination, and the better they grow at it, the more involved and creative we become, Senior added.

Does Chatbot Need Generative AI?

Generative AI, like other types of artificial intelligence, learns how to take actions from the past. Instead of just categorizing or identifying data like traditional AI, it develops entirely new material based on that training, such as writing, images, and even computer code, Reuters reported.

For Senior, the chatbot doesn't need generative AI. However, if one bot has it, the others must as well. Otherwise, the user will be involved with whatever provides them with the most enjoyable experience.

Senior said it happened to him, specifically with the one he developed. The more your bot remembers you or recommends the perfect movie or song to you, the more attached you'll be. He added that the more information he feeds, the more likely it becomes like him.

Oakes believes there are several ways in which people can interact with chatbots, and it would appear that a person would be more likely to respond to an AI that is, perhaps, far more sophisticated.

However, she also thinks that having to remind chatbots of facts or walk them through your relationship with them is like having fantasy kids. For her, it's a direct form of engagement, and it helps users feel like they're participants in their bots' growth.

She also noted that people are responsible for generating the entities with which they interact. Therefore, creativity comes out quite a bit in the groups of people who write stories with their bots.

I suppose that frustration also plays a part. People prefer to feel like they have control over these chatbots, which can make it annoying or even offensive if a bot addresses you by a different name.

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