The Illusion of Empathy: How AI Chatbots Shape Conversation Perception

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Liu, Tingting, Giorgi, Salvatore, Aich, Ankit, Lahnala, Allison, Curtis, Brenda, Ungar, Lyle, Sedoc, João
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2024
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author Liu, Tingting
Giorgi, Salvatore
Aich, Ankit
Lahnala, Allison
Curtis, Brenda
Ungar, Lyle
Sedoc, João
author_facet Liu, Tingting
Giorgi, Salvatore
Aich, Ankit
Lahnala, Allison
Curtis, Brenda
Ungar, Lyle
Sedoc, João
contents As AI chatbots increasingly incorporate empathy, understanding user-centered perceptions of chatbot empathy and its impact on conversation quality remains essential yet under-explored. This study examines how chatbot identity and perceived empathy influence users' overall conversation experience. Analyzing 155 conversations from two datasets, we found that while GPT-based chatbots were rated significantly higher in conversational quality, they were consistently perceived as less empathetic than human conversational partners. Empathy ratings from GPT-4o annotations aligned with user ratings, reinforcing the perception of lower empathy in chatbots compared to humans. Our findings underscore the critical role of perceived empathy in shaping conversation quality, revealing that achieving high-quality human-AI interactions requires more than simply embedding empathetic language; it necessitates addressing the nuanced ways users interpret and experience empathy in conversations with chatbots.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2411_12877
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The Illusion of Empathy: How AI Chatbots Shape Conversation Perception
Liu, Tingting
Giorgi, Salvatore
Aich, Ankit
Lahnala, Allison
Curtis, Brenda
Ungar, Lyle
Sedoc, João
Human-Computer Interaction
Artificial Intelligence
As AI chatbots increasingly incorporate empathy, understanding user-centered perceptions of chatbot empathy and its impact on conversation quality remains essential yet under-explored. This study examines how chatbot identity and perceived empathy influence users' overall conversation experience. Analyzing 155 conversations from two datasets, we found that while GPT-based chatbots were rated significantly higher in conversational quality, they were consistently perceived as less empathetic than human conversational partners. Empathy ratings from GPT-4o annotations aligned with user ratings, reinforcing the perception of lower empathy in chatbots compared to humans. Our findings underscore the critical role of perceived empathy in shaping conversation quality, revealing that achieving high-quality human-AI interactions requires more than simply embedding empathetic language; it necessitates addressing the nuanced ways users interpret and experience empathy in conversations with chatbots.
title The Illusion of Empathy: How AI Chatbots Shape Conversation Perception
topic Human-Computer Interaction
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.12877