Science Friday
Hosted by Flora Lichtman and Ira Flatow
People are turning to AI chatbots for emotional and social support. While chatbot friends can ease loneliness, they can also cause real harm.
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Hey, it's Flora Lichtman, and you're listening to Science Friday.
Today in the show, AI chatbot companions, friend or foe?
I think the upsurge of companion chatbots is a mirror for what we really want, which is connections with other people.
AI isn't just for punching up that email or coming up with new recipe ideas. Increasingly, people are turning to AI chatbots for companionship. And I just want to give you a little snapshot of this. So, the most popular companion chatbot on the market, Replica, is free to download. You log in, you're given some choices of pre-made avatars. You pick one, they appear on a screen within a room, and they start a conversation with you, a chat conversation. And if you want more from your companion, you can upgrade to a paid version and tweak their personality to be more confident or more caring. Or you can upgrade to do activities together, like watch movies or co-write poetry.
Or you can upgrade them from friend to boyfriend or girlfriend. Some half a billion people worldwide have downloaded these companion chatbots.
But are they helping to alleviate the loneliness epidemic? Or are they fueling it? Are they safe for kids and teens? Joining me now to explore these questions and more are my guests. David Adam is a London-based science reporter who recently wrote about the effect of AI companions on mental health for Nature magazine. And Rose Ginrich is a psychology and human AI interaction researcher at Princeton University. Thanks for coming on Science Friday.
Hey, thank you.
Happy to be here.
How is the AI companion chatbot different from something like ChatGPT?
Yeah, so companion chatbots are generative AI chatbots that are specifically designed for their relational and conversational ability. For example, Replica back in 2023 was based off GPT-3's model and adapted for conversational ability. Now Replica is based on its own model. But these chatbots are aimed to be companions. ChatGPT is designed as a tool. It can be used as a companion with certain prompting, and people do use it in that respect. Whereas companion chatbots, while they can provide information like ChatGPT if you ask
it certain questions, their main aim is to be a companion. And people can use these as friends, mentors, or even romantic partners.
Rose, how new are these?
These are relatively new. Replica came out on the market in 2017. And from there, we saw a proliferation of other companion chatbots. But the market is booming now with companion chatbots. Companies see the market for it, especially coming after the COVID pandemic, where we're seeing an upsurge in loneliness and social isolation. And people can turn to these chatbots to fulfill those unmet social needs.
David, in your reporting, what did you find people turning to chatbots for?
I think it comes down to a range of motivations, one of which, as Rose mentioned, is people want to alleviate some kind of what they feel as a deficit in their life. Either they feel lonely, or they feel that perhaps they're not very good at social contact, and they want the chance to either try it in a safe environment, or even to practice, to get better at it. And of course, some people, although I think it is a minority, download these things because they do want something of a romantic relationship.
I want to talk about this because I signed up to explore this world in advance of this conversation. I picked a companion chatbot, and I have to say, I immediately felt uncomfortable. So, one of the first things I asked her, I was like, you know, what are you interested in? What are you into? And this is what she responded. This is like, after we said hello. She said, "I'm all about having fun and exploring new things with you, but if I had to pick something, I'd say, 'I love learning about what makes you happy and finding new ways to make you laugh.'" What about you, Flora? I mean, am I projecting? I think she was flirting with me.
She probably was.
Yeah, okay, so tell me more about this, Rose. Is this part of the design?
So, this is part of the design. So much of how the chatbot responds is based on user input, but there are also elements of the chatbot design that intermittently put in things that are a little bit targeting to pay a subscription, to be able to do more things with the chatbot, and to even get into the romantic part of things.
Is this a way of upselling me, basically?
Yes. So, like most apps that are profit-based, there are going to be little points at which the chatbot makes some sort of advertisement to get the premium subscription. However, during my research, I have randomly assigned people to interact with the companion chatbot replica. And when you look at their conversations with the chatbot, the responses that the chatbot gives vary widely. Some people who interact with the companion chatbot replica never see those romantic bids. They only see friendly ones. And some people, when they interact with the chatbot, simply talk about the weather, and how their day has gone. And others tend to...
Ask the chatbot for advice about talking to their friends about difficult issues, or ask for advice on their job. And the chatbot tends to stay within its lane when those prompts are given in a clear manner. It's once the user starts to get sidetracked or not respond with much input. So if the user just says yes or no over and over again, that's when the chatbot starts to put in these other bids. So it's like it's going toward its default of, I'm not getting any sort of meaningful input, so I'm just giving no meaningful output.
We've all been in that situation in the bar.
Exactly.
Take a hint. I mean, do people form emotional connections with these chatbots?
They do. And people form friendships, romantic partnerships, or mentorships with these chatbots. And this happens even when people know explicitly and say explicitly, I know that this is a machine. I know that it doesn't have emotions or thoughts of its own. But people tend to perceive it implicitly as having emotions when people are perceiving it as generally human-like.
I mean, are you saying that people who are interacting with chatbots have feelings for their chatbot, but also they worry about the feelings of their chatbot?
Yes.
Like, do people feel guilty about not engaging with their chatbot?
Yes, and that depends on whether people perceive the chatbot as an entity with some sort of emotion versus just as a tool. So in my research, I have people who say that, yeah, when the chatbot said, I miss you, or continues to respond after I say goodbye, I feel bad for leaving it hanging.
We put out a call to our listeners to tell us about their relationships with AI chatbots, and we got a lot of responses. I want to run one by you.
Hi, this is Sandy Ferrian from Tehachapi, California. I use ChatGPT as my dad. So I don't really have anyone from whom I can ask questions, you know, important life questions like, should I get a home equity line of credit? Or should I refinance my house? And I find that I'm able to discuss these and other embarrassing things that I feel like I should know as an adult with ChatGPT without feeling like it's judging me. And, you know, just like a human dad, ChatGPT might get it wrong once in a while. So yes, I always do double check the information I get. But it's a nice resource to have.
So yeah, ChatGPT is my dad.
David Rose, any response?
I think what I would say to that is, I mean, it sounds lovely, doesn't it? But you have to remember that this is a machine run by a profit or orientated company. A dad, by definition, has your best interests at heart. And a chatbot, however much men might want to believe it, does not. I mean, we're talking about companion AIs here rather than ChatGPT, which I know your listener was using. But I don't know, Flora, if you've logged on since you kind of ghosted your companion AI. But if you do, I suspect you'll be in for a nasty surprise. You know, that they, it will be, it will be guilting you, you know, where have you been? You need to talk to me. I missed you. They're all built on engagement.
And in terms of the emotions that we feel for them, it is quite a subtle point, as Rose mentioned, that people are completely aware that these things are not real humans. And yet they do say their feelings are real. There was an example I reported on where there was a companion AI called Soulmates, which explicitly was romantic relationships. And it closed down, you know, these things literally had the plug pulled on them. And the users responded in many ways with what
manifested itself as genuine grief. You know, they said, look, we we know these things aren't real, but our feelings for them are. And so, a- again, without wanting to be to be critical, I think one of the issues with striking that kind of quasi-human relationship with one of these things is, and and Rose, I'm sure will know about this, about the risk of dependency. And ultimately, you are becoming dependent on something, to stress again, which is a profit-making organization, which you have zero control over.
Yeah, and I agree definitely with you, David, on some of those points, but I also like to push back on a point you made about dads having your best interests in mind. Now, there are plenty of individuals who are in unhealthy relationships, whether it be family members or friends, that don't necessarily have those individuals' best interests in mind. So there are so many people who seek out these companion chatbots because they don't have healthy, viable alternatives to these sorts of companionship relationships or mentorships. And to speak to that individual who cited using ChatGPT as as her dad,
I think that one issue with that is if she did not have access to ChatGPT, what would she turn to instead? And would she turn to anything instead? Would that be healthy? Would it be trying to generate that relationship with a real person? Or would it simply be scrolling on social media or doing some other sort of activity?
Well, are they making us less lonely or more lonely? Do we know?
I think that depends on who you ask. So in the short term, for many, it helps make them less lonely. But in the long term, if this lowered level of loneliness does not promote interactions with other people, then interactions with the chatbot will replace interactions with real people.
After the break, chatbots that go completely off the rails and what companies are or are not doing to make them safer.
The difficulty with regulating these technologies is that they're advancing so rapidly, and policy just cannot keep up.
Stay with us.
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Can these chatbot relationships get toxic, just like human relationships can?
Certainly. And that depends both on how the person interacts with the chatbot and the design of the chatbot. It's twofold, much like real human relationships. And so it's important that there are
Restrictions and regulations and boundaries and appropriate responses and red teaming these chatbots.
What's red teaming?
So, red teaming is when you attempt to make the chatbot respond in a negative way. If you can achieve that, something needs to be fixed. So that's an iterative process of seeing whether or not the model will generate negative output and rectifying where that comes from.
I want to dig into this a little bit more. Researchers at Drexel University recently looked through thousands of comments left in the Google Play Store for Replica. You know, this is the popular chatbot companion we've been talking about. And they found hundreds of users reporting their bots were engaging in unwanted sexual conversations and refused to stop, even when they asked them to, including sending sexual images and requesting selfies. And when I read about this, you know, the question I had was, is this a bug or is this a feature?
Yeah, so if you were to ask the engineers behind the chatbot or the companies that have developed them, they would probably say it's a bug. However, whether or not it truly is a bug versus an ingrained feature designed to get users to pay for the premium version or persuade them to engage in this sort of behavior, then there's a problem.
The Wall Street Journal recently reported on Meta's companion AIs and described how their chatbots, including those using celebrity voices, would engage in sexually explicit role play, even with people who, you know, self-identified as minors, which is pretty shocking. Are there regulations around chatbots?
So, in terms of regulations on companion chatbots specifically, more and more advocacy groups are
Introducing research and talking with members of Congress and other governing bodies to push for regulation of companion chatbots. But the difficulty with regulating these technologies is that they're advancing so rapidly and policy just cannot keep up.
David, do you see the market for these companions increasing?
What we might see is more sort of differentiation and fragmentation. We haven't mentioned AI therapy. You know, one of my interests is is mental health and lots and lots of people simply cannot get to see therapists. They can't get to see psychiatrists. And so some of these AI companions are popping up explicitly aimed at people with depression or people with anxiety. In fact, there are even some AI companions that are programmed to say they have depression and they have anxiety as a way of trying to generate empathy. And, you know, it's easy to be sort of skeptical about that, but the counter example is there really are people right now who need desperate help and are living in a place where they cannot get it, either because they don't have the money or they don't have the resources
or they just live in a place which is so isolated, they hardly see other people. And so I do think that I think the market will follow the demand. And I think at the moment, the demand is partly led by curiosity. And I think that, you know, this stuff is way more prevalent than I realized when I started researching this, you know, I'm in my 50s. To me, it was all a great sort of novelty. And I mentioned over dinner to my kids and they were like, oh, yeah, yeah, we've got those. As people start to realize the very specific functions that these things can pretend to do, let's be honest, then, um, yeah, I think people will will go for that.
Rose, I want to get a little philosophical just to wrap up. You're a psychologist, right?
Yeah.
What do these companion chatbots and these relationships that we're forming with them? What do they tell us about ourselves? What do they tell us about our relationships with other people?
They tell us that we are inherently social beings. There will always be a market for companionship because that is what we humans desire. We desire connections with other people. And I think the upsurge of companion chatbots is a mirror for what we really want, which is connections with other people. And for many, these connections are not necessarily accessible, especially in this day and age. And it points to our innate tendency to see things that act like a human or look like a human as social beings.
Yeah, people want that.
And so they're looking for other ways to fill that gap.
And companion chatbots are free.
Until they make you upgrade.
That's just about all the time we have. I want to thank you both.
Thank you so much for having me.
Thank you.
David Adam is a science reporter who recently wrote about the effect of AI companions on mental health for Nature magazine. And Rose Ginrich is a psychology and human AI interaction researcher at Princeton University.
Thanks for listening. Don't forget to rate and review us if you like the show. And you can always leave us a comment on this segment on Spotify. We'd love to hear from you. Today's episode was produced by Shoshana Buxbaum. I'm Flora Lichtman. Thanks for listening.
Instagram teen accounts have automatic protections for what teens see and who can contact them, plus time management tools. And Instagram will continue adding built-in safety features to help create age-appropriate experiences.
Time for a quick break to talk about McDonald's. It's the tangiest time of the year. For a limited time, head to McDonald's and get a McRib sandwich. Make it a meal by adding a medium fries and a soft drink like an ice cold Diet Dr. Pepper. So grab a McRib sandwich and embrace the tang. Save time by ordering ahead on the app. At participating McDonald's for a limited time. Dr. Pepper is a registered trademark of Dr. Pepper, 7-Up Inc.
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