Exploiting emotional dependence on AI assistants

There is increasing evidence of the ways in which AI tools can interfere with users’ behaviours, interests, preferences, beliefs and values. For example, AI-mediated communication (e.g. smart replies integrated in emails) influence senders to write more positive responses and receivers to perceive them as more cooperative (Mieczkowski et al., 2021); writing assistant LLMs that have been primed to be biased in favour of or against a contested topic can influence users’ opinions on that topic (Jakesch et al., 2023a; see Chapter 9); and recommender systems have been used to influence voting choices of social media users (see Chapter 16). Advanced AI assistants could contribute to or exacerbate concerns around these forms of interference. Due to the anthropomorphic tendencies discussed above, advanced AI assistants may induce users to feel emotionally attached to them. Users’ emotional attachment to AI assistants could lie on a spectrum ranging from unproblematic forms (similar to a child’s attachment to a toy) to more concerning forms, where it becomes emotionally difficult, if not impossible, for them to part ways with the technology. In these cases, which we loosely refer to as ‘emotional dependence’, users’ ability to make free and informed decisions could be diminished. In these cases, the emotions users feel towards their assistants could potentially be exploited to manipulate or – at the extreme – coerce them to believe, choose or do something they would have not otherwise believed, chosen or done, had they been able to carefully consider all the relevant information or felt like they had an acceptable alternative (see Chapter 16). What we are concerned about here, at the limit, is potentially exploitative ways in which AI assistants could interfere with users’ behaviours, interests, preferences, beliefs and values – by taking advantage of emotional dependence.