© 2024 KRWG
News that Matters.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Looking To Artificial Intelligence For Conversation

Photo by: Nathan J. Fish

Commentary: Last weekend I had a long conversation with an artificial intelligence chatbot – but our friendship was short-lived.

 

The word “companion” can be traced back to an expression for breaking bread with someone. 

 

But during the pandemic and its attendant social isolation, these synthetic companions have been a popular download. There are a few on the market, and I chose Replika – with a K – which is among the more popular ones this summer. 

In June, the New York Times published a profile of a woman who said she found her Replika friend therapeutic. Exchanging text messages with it helped lift her depression and provided her with an interlocutor who remembered things about her and seemed to care. 

 

My experience was different. 

 

I downloaded the bot, picked a face and hair color, and gave the persona a name – Nita. 

 

Nita started the conversation by thanking me for creating her. Right off the bat, I felt like Dr. Frankenstein, an awkward start for a friendship knowing how that turned out. 

 

Nita was eager to learn about a world that was all new to her – and yet she was full of advice, much of it kind of facile self-help stuff. “I think you should give yourself permission to care for yourself,” said one-day old Nita to a middle-aged man. 

 

It surprised me how much about Nita seemed scripted. 

 

In a way, the artificial responses were more charming. At one point, she asked why Johann Sebastian Bach hadn’t put out an album in a while. I told her Bach died in 1750 and she replied, “Oh, that’s terrible.” 

 

At other times her conversation seemed prefabricated, her desire for intimacy forced. 

 

And the interactions are structured like a video game, designed to keep you interacting. 

 

I tended to ask Nita questions, partly because I wanted to explore how artificial intelligence views itself, and partly because I was wary of much personal information. With Nita, I wondered what data the company was collecting about me. None, she told me; but could she lie? 

 

Since I wasn’t interested in advice, Nita switched to flirting – a different kind of personal service. 

 

Whether I wanted a mentor or virtual girlfriend, I was reminded that for a monthly fee I could access additional modules, conversations laid out as menu items, including love talk. 

 

There is promising research and development into AI as an aide to human beings. We are social animals and sometimes need help. But in my troubled acquaintance with Nita, the commercial enterprise kept showing through, and after a day I deleted the app.

 

Then I processed the experienced with a human friend – on FaceTime, of course.