AI chatbots can be as effective as humans at emotional support—sometimes better
New research led by The University of Manchester in collaboration with Durham University has found that AI chatbots such as ChatGPT can match—and in some situations outperform—humans as a source of everyday emotional support. However, the advantage depends on the emotional context, and a key ingredient for effective support—offering specific, actionable guidance—can boost the quality of support from both humans and AI alike.
Humans displaying positive emotions in customer service interactions have long been known to improve customer experience, but researchers wanted to see if this also applied to AI. They conducted experimental studies to determine if positive emotional displays improved customer service and found that emotive AI is only appreciated if the…
A new study led by researchers at the University of Oxford and the Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) has found that large language models (LLMs)—the AI systems behind chatbots like ChatGPT—generalize language patterns in a surprisingly human-like way: through analogy, rather than strict grammatical rules.
Thousands of security experts, hackers, and college students competed to trick powerful text-generation systems into revealing their dark sides at the Defcon hacker conference in Las Vegas.