consider a few scenarios around these two characters: a possibly-depressed Pierre and probably-sociopathic Eliza:
these characters chat IRL and Pierre ends his life.
these characters enact that same scenario on-stage at a theater.
these characters enact that same scene in a videogame via the player selecting dialogue options.
it’s scenario 1 which is horrific. in scenario 2, a Pierre-like viewer is far less likely to end his life after leaving the theater, ditto with scenario 3.
i think some of us already think of these chatbots as “acting out a role” — that’s what a bunch of prompt engineering is about. sometimes we’re explicit in telling that chatbot what “kind” of actor it’s chatting with. getting tsundere output from a chatbot is an example that requires role-playing for both actors. the weird part, then, is why do users end up relating to the experience as if it’s form (1) instead of (2) or (3)? is it possible (and good?) to explicitly shift the experiences into form (2) or (3)? instead of presenting the user a textbox that’s supposed to represent them, should we rather be presenting them a scene of two actors, and placing them in control of one of those actors?
consider a few scenarios around these two characters: a possibly-depressed Pierre and probably-sociopathic Eliza:
these characters chat IRL and Pierre ends his life.
these characters enact that same scenario on-stage at a theater.
these characters enact that same scene in a videogame via the player selecting dialogue options.
it’s scenario 1 which is horrific. in scenario 2, a Pierre-like viewer is far less likely to end his life after leaving the theater, ditto with scenario 3.
i think some of us already think of these chatbots as “acting out a role” — that’s what a bunch of prompt engineering is about. sometimes we’re explicit in telling that chatbot what “kind” of actor it’s chatting with. getting tsundere output from a chatbot is an example that requires role-playing for both actors. the weird part, then, is why do users end up relating to the experience as if it’s form (1) instead of (2) or (3)? is it possible (and good?) to explicitly shift the experiences into form (2) or (3)? instead of presenting the user a textbox that’s supposed to represent them, should we rather be presenting them a scene of two actors, and placing them in control of one of those actors?