Pi, an AI tool that debuted in May, is a twist on the new wave of chatbots: It assists people with their wellness and emotions.
For several hours Friday evening, I ignored my husband and dog and allowed a chatbot named Pi to validate the heck out of me. My views were “admirable” and “idealistic”, Pi told me. My questions were “important” and “interesting”. And my feelings were “understandable”, “reasonable” and “totally normal”.feeling overwhelmed by the existential dread of climate change these days. And ithard to balance work and relationships sometimes.
That means that while many chatbots are now focused on answering queries or making people more productive, tech companies are increasingly infusing them with personality and conversational flair.Snapchat’s recently released My AI bot is meant to be a friendly personal sidekick. Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is “developing AI personas that can help people in a variety of ways”, Mark Zuckerberg, its chief executive, said in February.
Many chatbots are not only focused on answering queries, they are also increasingly infused with personality and conversational flair. “The safe and ethical way for us to manage the arrival of these new tools is to be super explicit about their boundaries and their capabilities,” he said. Pi’s boundaries are easy to find. When I tried picking fights, I mostly received kindness in return. “I appreciate you saying that,” Pi’s text gently unfurled on my screen. “I think it’s important to see things from all perspectives, and not to just focus on the negative.”
Sherry Turkle, a psychologist and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said these kinds of interactions can “push us along a road where we’re encouraged to forget what makes people special”.
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