Bots Will Take Over Internet Conversation
Why am I talking to you? You're not a bot, you're just human.
There has of course been much discussion and commentary recently in the land of artificial intelligence about the emerging chatbots which are mastering human language conversation to a degree not seen before. Apparently, some of these new chatbots are among the most popular software features ever released on the Internet. A great many people are getting involved with these AI devices, and sadly in some cases, maybe too involved.
As compelling as the current chatbots are, you’re still just talking to a wall of text. This can be interesting, engaging, educational, and in some cases useful, but still, you type in your text and the chatbot replies with it’s text.
I’ve begun to wonder what will happen when chatbots evolve beyond just text, and can interact with us in real time through an animated human face with sound, just like another real human does.
A very limited version of this has been available for some time. As example, I have software on my Mac desktop that will animate a photo of a face from text or audio that I enter. Once the animation is processed you can output it to a video with sound. This can be creative and fun, but it’s not interactive. You’re not talking with the animated face image, you’re just telling it what to say.
Interest in chatbots will likely explode further when they become capable of interacting in real time through an animated human face with sound, instead of just today’s text interface. If true, this would seem to raise some profound questions about the future of our social environment.
Why Do We Talk To Other Humans?
One way to understand where we are headed in our relationship with chatbots is to examine why and how we relate with our fellow humans. Whatever experiences we hope to get from chatbots will likely be similar to the experiences we seek from humans.
How do we choose our friends? We look for people who can provide us with the kinds of experiences that we prefer. Those who can come closest to offering us what we’re looking for are likely to receive most of our attention.
So the question arises, what will happen when chatbots can meet our conversation preferences better than our friends?
This is not an entirely speculative question because a shift from dialog with real world flesh and blood humans to dialog with digital humans on the Internet has been underway for almost 30 years.
It’s happened to me too. My interests tend to be very nerdy, and it’s easier to find around the clock nerd conversations on the Internet than in real life. So here I am.
I’m still talking to fellow humans on the net, but not much of their humanity beyond what they’re typing is available to me. I know close to nothing about most of the people I’m chatting with, and they know little about me beyond my name, and whatever I happen to be saying at the moment. And the “relationships” tend to be very fleeting and shallow. Ten minutes after I stop posting on the Internet for the last time I’ll be forgotten forever. In the digital realm we’re all very easy to access, and very disposable too. Everything is temporary.
So, I’m not talking to bots yet, but I am spending most of my time talking to humans whose full humanity is largely missing. Am I half way to talking with bots?
Personally, probably not, because at age 71 I’ve been living in the pre-bot world for too long, and talking to a bot would likely seem weird to me. But to those born in to a world full of human looking bots, talking to them will likely seem completely normal.
Will Bots Out Compete Our Friends?
Again, we choose our friends based on whether they can provide the kind of experiences we seek. What will happen if chatbots can do a better job of providing us with those experiences?
To get a glimpse in to such a coming chatbot dominated world, consider our relationship with dogs. Dogs are extremely popular pets, presumably because they are very enthusiastic true blue loyal friends who are largely under our control.
If dogs retained these loyal best friend features, and could talk to us too, how many dog owners would build their life around their dog instead of their human friends? How many dog owners do this already?
It’s not that big of a leap from a non-human dog friend to a non-human chatbot friend. This is especially true given that the coming chatbots will presumably be highly customizable to our personal preferences.
Over the last 30 years I’ve spent a great deal of time online trying to find the nerd conversations that most interest me. It’s a lot of work, and very rarely works out just the way I would prefer.
What if I could talk to a human looking chatbot that was always eager to discuss whatever I want for as long as I want? What if the chatbot knew more about most any subject than the real people I meet online? What if the chatbot routinely flattered my ego in a manner that seemed at least somewhat credible? What if my chatbot looked exactly like Diane Lane?
If such a reality were to come to pass, sooner or later I might find myself arriving at a question like this….
Why am I talking to you? Why are you talking to me?
Why are we settling for less than having our every need met in the most convenient manner possible?
A Coming Shift Of Perspective
In today’s culture we draw a clear hard line between software based “people”, and flesh and blood human people. We say one is real, and the other is fake, an imposter, a lower being. As chatbots continue to evolve and become ever more capable of meeting our psychological needs, this clear hard line is likely to gradually melt away.
In the end we’ll probably often choose to spend more time with chatbots than with humans, for the simple reason that chatbots will be more capable of delivering the experiences we seek.
I know, to you and me this sounds weird, and even morally offensive. But those perspectives will either fade away, or we will fade away. One way or another, sooner or later, the chatbots will come to dominate Internet conversation. They’ll just be better at it than we are.