Does it matter that you might fall in love with your computer customer service agent?

Written SH on 2023-04-14.

In future tp . Tagged ml ai

An interesting paper that illustrates the potential of generative agents.

In this paper, we introduce generative agents—computational software agents that simulate believable human behavior.
Park, J.S., 2023. Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behavior. online.

Social simulacra offer many potential advantages such as in human-centered design process and in creating data for stateless personas for use in social prototyping. However such technology also comes with risks in it use.

One risk identified is,

One risk is people forming parasocial relationships with generative agents even when such relationships may not be appropriate. Despite being aware that generative agents are computational entities, users may anthropomorphize them or attach human emotions to them.
Park, J.S., 2023. Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behavior. online.

It is important to note that while imagining the danger and risk of technological developments often the impact on the human is forgotten. Imagine a future of customers addicted to chatting with customer services bots!

Particularly interesting is the systems ability to answer questions such as,

What inspires you in life the most right now, and why?
Park, J.S., 2023. Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behavior. online.

Tenth Person

Does providing real human interaction in the future mean a more personalised, high quality of service or will the computer system be better? As it offers hours of distraction prior to failing to handle the customer complaint?

Future Imagining

A future where automated systems create compelling and engaging interactions between customers and business is much easier to imagine when the business can offer the client focus typically reserved for only big account clients. How can the data required for this be preemptively generated and stored?

I'm ready to future-ready my business!

References

Park, J.S., O'Brien, J.C., Cai, C.J., Morris, M.R., Liang, P. and Bernstein, M.S., 2023. Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behavior. arXiv preprint arXiv:2304.03442.URL.

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