Echo Chambers of One: Companion AI and the Future of Human Connection

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Center for Humane Technology

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4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 15 May 2025

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

AI companion chatbots feel human but they're not. They're platforms designed to maximize engagement, risking artificial intimacy and addictive intelligence. MIT’s Pattie Maes & Pat Pataranutaporn join the show to discuss better paths forward.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everyone, this is Daniel Barquay. Welcome to your undivided attention.
0:09.4	You've probably seen a lot of the news lately about AI companions, these chat bots that do
0:13.5	way more than just answering your questions. They talk to you like a person, they ask you about
0:18.1	your day, they talk about the emotions you're having, things like that.
0:21.6	Well, people started to rely on these bots for emotional support, even forming deep relationships with them.
0:27.6	But the thing is, these interactions with AI companions influence us in ways that are subtle, in ways that we don't realize.
0:33.6	You naturally want to think that you're talking with a human because that's how
0:38.5	they're designed. But they're not human. They're platforms incentivized to keep you engaging as long as
0:44.5	possible, using tactics like flattery, like manipulation, and even deception to do it. We have to remember
0:51.6	that the design choices behind these companion bots, they're just that,
0:55.5	they're choices, and we can make better ones. Now, we're inherently relational beings, and as we
1:02.2	relate more and more to our technology, and not just relating through our technology to other people,
1:08.3	how does that change us? And can we design AI in a way that helps
1:12.4	us relate better with the people around us? Or are we going to design an AI future that replaces
1:17.5	human relationships with something more shallow and more transaction? So today on the show, we've invited
1:24.7	two researchers who've thought deeply about this problem.
1:33.6	Patty Maas and Pat Pat Peranutapan are co-directors of the advancing humanity through AI lab at MIT.
1:39.4	Patty is an expert in human-computer interaction, and Pat is an AI technologist and researcher,
1:45.8	and a co-author of an article in the MIT Technology Review about the rise of addictive intelligence,
1:47.4	which will link to in the show notes.
1:50.2	So I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.
1:54.8	Patty and Pat, welcome to your undivided attention.
	...

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