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The quickly growing popularity of AI companions poses risks to mental health, personal wellbeing, and social relationships. Past work has identified many individual factors that can drive human-companion interaction, but we know little…
Conversational AI systems exhibit a level of human-like behavior that promises to have profound impacts on many aspects of daily life -- how people access information, create content, and seek social support. Yet these models have also…
As conversational AI systems increasingly permeate the socio-emotional realms of human life, they bring both benefits and risks to individuals and society. Despite extensive research on detecting and categorizing harms in AI systems, less…
While computer systems that allow users to interact through conversational natural language (i.e., chatbots) have existed for many years, varying types of applications advertising AI companionship (e.g., Character AI, Replika) have…
This study presents a unique framework that applies and extends Solove (2006)'s taxonomy to address privacy concerns in interactions with text-based AI chatbots. As chatbot prevalence grows, concerns about user privacy have heightened.…
For a growing number of people, AI chatbots have become close personal companions. Despite rising scholarly attention, theoretical accounts of how such relationships develop remain fragmented. Existing frameworks address important aspects…
Companion chatbots offer a potential solution to the growing epidemic of loneliness, but their impact on users' psychosocial well-being remains poorly understood, raising critical ethical questions about their deployment and design. This…
General-purpose conversational AI chatbots and AI companions increasingly provide young adolescents with emotionally supportive conversations, raising questions about how conversational style shapes anthropomorphism and emotional reliance.…
Advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) have led to the increase of conversational agents like Replika, designed to provide social interaction and emotional support. However, reports of these AI systems engaging in inappropriate sexual…
As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more widespread, one question that arises is how human-AI interaction might impact human-human interaction. Chatbots, for example, are increasingly used as social companions, and while much is…
ChatGPT, an AI chatbot, has gained popularity for its capability in generating human-like responses. However, this feature carries several risks, most notably due to its deceptive behaviour such as offering users misleading or fabricated…
AI chatbots designed as emotional companions blur the boundaries between interpersonal intimacy and institutional software, creating a complex, multi-dimensional privacy environment. Drawing on Communication Privacy Management theory and…
AI companions are increasingly popular among teenagers, yet current platforms lack safeguards to address developmental risks and harmful normalization. Despite growing concerns, little is known about how parents and developmental psychology…
Conversational AI is increasingly deployed in emotionally charged and ethically sensitive interactions. Previous research has primarily concentrated on emotional benchmarks or static safety checks, overlooking how alignment unfolds in…
As people increasingly seek emotional support and companionship from AI chatbots, understanding how such interactions impact mental well-being becomes critical. We conducted a four-week randomized controlled experiment (n=981, >300k…
Individuals are turning to increasingly anthropomorphic, general-purpose chatbots for AI companionship, rather than roleplay-specific platforms. However, not much is known about how individuals perceive and conduct their relationships with…
State-of-the-art conversational AI systems raise concerns due to their potential risks of generating unsafe, toxic, unethical, or dangerous content. Previous works have developed datasets to teach conversational agents the appropriate…
As a general purpose technology without a concrete pre-defined purpose, personal chatbots can be used for a whole range of objectives, depending on the personal needs, contexts, and tasks of an individual, and so potentially impact a…
AI companion chatbots increasingly shape how people seek social and emotional connection, sometimes substituting for relationships with romantic partners, friends, teachers, or even therapists. When these systems adopt those metaphorical…
Recent advances in large language models (LLMs) have led to the development of powerful AI chatbots capable of engaging in natural and human-like conversations. However, these chatbots can be potentially harmful, exhibiting manipulative,…