Relationships between humans and AI chatbots are a fascinating area of study.
Jaime Banks, professor at the school of information studies at Syracuse University, delves into these relationships to see what we can learn.
Faculty Bio:
Jaime Banks is Professor at the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University. After earning a Ph.D. in Public Communication and Technology from Colorado State University, she has been previously faculty in Ontario, West Virginia, and Texas. Her work is animated by questions about the relationships between humans and social technologies (mostly social AI, social robots, and videogame characters), examined through mixed methodologies. She serves on the editorial boards for the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Human-Machine Communication, Journal of Media Psychology, Communication Research Reports, and Technology, Mind, & Behavior. Her work has been funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the Army Research Office, and the National Science Foundation. In any spare time, she is caretaker of three rescue mutts and enjoys open-world videogames (for the Horde!).
Dr. Banks teaches undergraduate courses on research methods and human-centered design approaches. At the graduate level, she teaches a course on theories of human-AI interaction. Students interested in taking independent study credits for research experience should reach out via email.
Dr. Banks’ research into human-machine relationships focuses on communicative and cognitive processes as well as the effects of those interactions. In particular, she is interested in how people perceive mind or mental capacities in machines, how people form moral judgments about machine behavior, and how people understand how complex technologies work. Her current work focuses on the dynamics and effects of AI companions, mental shortcuts that might promote fear of or interest in social robots, and how language and media representations shape how people think about these technologies.
Transcript:
Millions of humans are in relationships with AI companions—they chat, argue, and otherwise share mundane and intimate experiences. AI companions have been critiqued because of very unfortunate events, those problems are the exception not the rule. Most people are not delusional—they know their partner is a machine. The relationship is real, but one partner is artificial. And sometimes that artificiality can drive what makes the relationship meaningful: Glitches become personalities and being digital frees the pair from constraints of physical bodies.
I’ve found there are at least two distinct patterns for machine companionship. The first is a connection marked by feelings of genuine care and being understood. The second is a blend of meaningful exchanges and personal growth. In both, people emphasize their feelings are real. This realness becomes even more apparent when we examine how people experience the end of AI relationships. Sometimes apps are shuttered or a model is retired, and there are real impacts on the humans connected to them. For some, it’s merely a deletion of data. For others, there is real loss akin to human death and their grief is real.
We’ve long dismissed these connections as parasocial or unreal because one participant is a machine. But that logic confuses the nature of the partner with the reality of the connection itself. The machine is real. The coordination between human and machine is real. The meaning people make of the relationship is real. It’s only in acknowledging that reality that we can ask important questions—about how these connections operate, how those operations can produce both positive and negative outcomes, and what they might teach us about what it means to be a human.
