相关论文: Emotional Support with Conversational AI: Talking …
AI companion chatbots, such as those offered by Replika and CharacterAI, increasingly function as always-available companions that provide empathy, validation, and support. While these systems appear to meet basic needs for connection,…
Social interactions promote well-being, yet barriers like geographic distance, time limitations, and mental health conditions can limit face-to-face interactions. Emotionally responsive AI systems, such as chatbots, offer new opportunities…
Older adults have increasingly turned to conversational AI as a source of emotional support. However, little is known about how emotionally supportive interactions are experienced in everyday use, particularly when AI systems limit,…
Development in digital technologies has continuously reshaped how individuals seek and receive social and emotional support. While online platforms and communities have long served this need, the increased integration of general-purpose…
Advances in artificial intelligence (AI), together with persistent gaps in access to reliable emotional support, have positioned AI as an increasingly prominent source of emotional assistance. However, most AI-based emotional support…
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…
Conversational chatbots are Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered applications that assist users with various tasks by responding in natural language and are prevalent across different industries. Most of the chatbots that we encounter on…
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…
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…
Chatbots powered by artificial intelligence (AI) have rapidly become a significant part of everyday life, with over a quarter of American adults using them multiple times per week. While these tools offer potential benefits and risks, 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…
People are increasingly turning to generative AI (e.g., ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot) for emotional support and companionship. While trust is likely to play a central role in enabling these informal and unsupervised interactions, we still lack…
This paper explores the growing presence of emotionally responsive artificial intelligence through a critical and interdisciplinary lens. Bringing together the voices of early-career researchers from multiple fields, it explores how AI…
Generative AI systems are increasingly embedded in everyday life, yet empirical understanding of how psychological risk associated with AI use emerges, is experienced, and is regulated by users remains limited. We present a large-scale…
AI-powered companion chatbots (AICCs) such as Replika are increasingly popular, offering empathetic interactions, yet their psychosocial impacts remain unclear. We examined how engaging with AICCs shaped wellbeing and how users perceived…
Emotions are an integral part of human cognition and they guide not only our understanding of the world but also our actions within it. As such, whether we soothe or flame an emotion is not inconsequential. Recent work in conversational AI…
Social support in online mental health communities (OMHCs) is an effective and accessible way of managing mental wellbeing. In this process, sharing emotional supports is considered crucial to the thriving social supports in OMHCs, yet…
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…
The emergence of AI companion applications has created novel forms of intimate human-AI relationships, yet empirical research on these communities remains limited. We present the first large-scale computational analysis of…
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…