Why people like to chat with bots - Issue #322

Whenever you see hockey-stick growth, you have to wonder why. In 2010, why did everything need to be a daily deals website? Why did every category suddenly need new luxury DTC brands? Why is everyone on Tiktok?

The simple explanations are probably "right." For example, we got new DTC brands because venture capitalist funding was easy to get. But the deeper, psychological answers pull back the curtain on both is and ought questions. We're on Tiktok because we don't know how to be alone and to do nothing.

When it comes to artificial chat bots, deeper explanations are far more interesting. What is the human need that chatting with bots serves? L. M. Sacasas, author of the first link below, has a really compelling answer:

Human beings are fundamentally social creatures, who desire to know and be known in the context of meaningful human relationships.

Chatbots approximate the kinds of conversations we should be having with our friends. It's sad that we are so lonely that the Bing homepage seems like a good option. It's also worrisome.

In 2005 or 2006, early social network websites started to explode. Most of us thought this was at least cool, if not good. At the end of an early print of Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam posited that connectivity with others on the internet could be a cure for collapsing social ties. After both the 2008 and 2012 elections, the lesson we learned was that political campaigns could be like Obama's and start a social movement, primarily online, and thus motivate people to vote. In the years after, we learned some hard lessons about the downsides of social media. Maybe Twitter isn't the best place for a presidency.

The hype bubble around artificial chat bots isn't quite the same as social network websites. As we embark on the chatting with robots adventure, it may be worth considering some of the lessons we learned from social media, lest we make the same mistakes again.