Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The show that asks the questions other shows are afraid to ask. The Last Show with David Cooper. Are you feeling lonely? Well, these days you could turn to an AI chatbot for things like emotional support. You could vent to it. You could confess to it. You could bond with it. And it might feel like a friend, but can a robot actually replace a real human connection?
Or does talking to your perfect friend just end up making you feel lonelier? Well, that's what we're going to discuss here with psychology researcher at the University of British Columbia, Ronnie Lee, who's done study on things like this. Ronnie, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. I don't think there's any stopping this, whether we like the sound of it or not.
People chatting with, you know, large language models, chat GPT tools like this to sort of replace friendship, to replace human interaction. What made you curious whether a chatbot is a good replacement for a human companion?
Well, we have all been this in the situation, right?
Chapter 2: Can AI chatbots effectively replace human companionship?
Late night and you're kind of feeling a little bit lonely and you are talking to your chatbot and they're super validating. They're kind of like, you know, chatting with you, give you some advice, for example, and we were feeling bad. they're always listening, they never fall asleep at 10 p.m., you know, and they are not like responding to your messages two days later, right?
They're super patient and they never kind of like stop talking to you or fall asleep when you're repeatedly talking about your ex, relationship problems. So it feels like AI can be the ultimate perfect friend we all wanted.
At least on its surface. I mean, I've heard about things like AI sycophancy, which is a fancy way of saying AIs that validate you a little too much might not be good for you. But let's talk about your research. You created a chatbot named Sam to be someone's ideal friend. What did you end up testing? What did Sam actually end up doing with some of your participants?
Yeah, so kind of like we get this idea from like when you're chatting with AI, they feel like super supportive and they think like maybe this is a good tool of scalable, obviously, to help cure loneliness, which is a serious problem nowadays, right? A lot of people are feeling lonely and we can maybe test if AI can be as effective, at least as a human being, to help you reduce loneliness.
So yeah, that's where we started to kind of build this tool. What if like a highly supportive AI chatbot talking to you would help you? So we basically pour all our knowledge we learned from relationship science to this chatbot and, you know, to be super validating and very patient and always be there for you.
And we wanted to see like whether this ultimate supportive chatbot can beat human beings.
And did the chatbot show things like empathy and appearing to care? Did it act like the perfect friend? Before we get to whether it felt like the perfect friend to the people you spoke to.
Yeah, for sure. We actually look into the conversations participants are having with the AI chatbot, and they're super engaging. Our participants talk to the AI chatbot with all sorts of other problems, and the AI turns out to be highly supportive. For example, I can give you a fun chat when a participant actually went to the AI saying like,
You know, one of her friends, Isabel, I don't know who she is, is a bitch. She's a fat liar, super mean to her. And the head shop responded, oh, maybe it's time to take a step back. And, you know, like Leon, some supportive friends and things like that. So it seems like super empathetic and people like it.
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Chapter 3: What insights did Ronnie Li gain from their research on loneliness?
Is there something to be said for that distraction? Like you mentioned that scene at 2 a.m., you're laying in bed, you're feeling lonely, you can't sleep. Is it at least a positive distraction from the existential dread from the crushing loneliness? Or maybe just recommend reaching out to a human friend.
Well, AI is not doing nothing, right? Like we did find that AI helped reduce negative feelings. Maybe, you know, venting to the AI when you're not feeling good is kind of like help to make you feel better at the moment. There are research has shown that people like AI does give you this kind of short-term relief. It makes people feel happier and, you know, more connected at the moment.
But it's more like a nummy fact, right? Like it numbs you when you're feeling bad, but it didn't really translate into long term benefit of feeling less lonelier.
My loneliness numbing thing when I'm at home and I feel that dread is just watching mindless television. So I guess it's maybe no better than that. The people you tested this bot out on with were first-year university students. To me, that's a really good group because you're in a new city potentially, meeting new people. You're potentially in a dorm.
It's a time when people are really lonely in life. Is there any other good reasons we might want to look at first-year university students when testing out loneliness stuff like this?
Well, that's exactly that. We think it's a peak window of, you know, when you're vulnerable to loneliness because you kind of like leave your existing social network, right? Your high school friends are scattered and you went to the new dorm sitting there that didn't know a single soul. And you kind of feel, have an actual sense of loneliness at the moment.
So also they are kind of like didn't have time to build their new social network. So I think this is perfect opportunity for us test whether speak to a AI chat bot, super supported one versus speak to a, you know, a random human peer and which one would be better for keep their loneliness.
The human peer, I imagine. But there's kind of an issue here. Like your results, they're not promising for chatbots. Like if you're showing that they don't actually reduce loneliness over time, people are still going to use them when they are feeling lonely. Is there a way to design them better? If we just made some changes, maybe they actually would help.
Maybe some prompts saying, hey, I know you're talking about this bot about feeling lonely and that's okay, but you should also talk to a human. Like any recommendations for how these things should be designed based on your finding?
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Chapter 4: How does the AI chatbot Sam interact with users?
This winter on Global. Have you ever told a lie? Are you serious? Wasn't lying part of the job description of CIA? From executive producer Dick Wolf and the team behind FBI. New partner. He can be a little by the book. You're not much use to me alive, but you're really no use to me dead. I never knew you cared. Two perspectives, one mission. You guys work in the open, we work in the shadows.
Starring Tom Ellis and Nick Gelfis. Nice work, partner. CIA. New series Mondays at 10 Eastern on Global. Stream on Stack TV.