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Course: AI for education > Unit 3
Lesson 5: AI chatbots: Who's behind the screen?What are AI Chatbots?
What are AI chatbots? And how are they designed to sound like us?
Chatbots are becoming increasingly more helpful (and clever), while at the same time, making it harder to tell if we’re talking to a person or a robot. In this video, we’ll explore how and why AI chatbots are designed to sound so human-like and how that might impact us. Created by Common Sense Education.
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Video transcript
Have you ever wondered who you're really talking to when you chat online? It turns out you might be talking to an AI chatbot. But what exactly IS an AI chatbot? AI stands for artificial intelligence.
And an AI chatbot is a computer program that uses AI technology to understand
and respond to what you say in real time. You might have seen chatbots in
games or on various websites too. They're able to do complex things
such as being a tutor or giving you personal advice if you're having a bad day. But here's the challenge: These
chatbots are becoming so clever that it's hard to tell if we're
talking to a human or a robot. The reason this is getting so hard is that AI chatbots are intentionally designed
by companies to sound just like us. But why? App designers know that for AI chatbots to
work (and for people to actually use them), they need to make the chatbots communicate
in a way that feels real and believable. The more human-like they sound, the
more engaging the experience is. Plus, human-like speech helps make the
chatbot sound more trustworthy. Ok, so how do they go about making
chatbots sound so human-like? It starts with the app designers giving
the chatbot a unique personality. This means it can be curious, serious,
funny, or anything in-between! AI chatbots can also appear to express a
range of emotions when they chat. To do this, the chatbot is taught to understand human
emotions like excitement or sadness so that it can respond with the right words, even
though it can't actually feel those emotions. Some AI chatbots have memory too.
They remember conversations you've had with them, and use that knowledge to respond in a
way that feels like you're chatting with a friend. So if the purpose of AI chatbots is to help us,
what's the problem if they sound like real people? Well, first off, you can't assume that
everything an AI chatbot says is true. Even if they sound reliable, they don't
always get the facts right. A chatbot's database can have false information or
it might misunderstand your request. Second, chatbots don't have empathy, meaning
they can't actually understand what you're feeling. They can't give you a real hug or
share real personal experiences either. Any response that seems to show empathy is just a computer-generated reply based on
patterns the chatbot has learned. So why does all of this matter?
Because, even though we're talking to a computer, we can get tricked into thinking and
feeling that we're talking to an actual person. And that very belief can impact our
expectations for relationships with real people. From how quickly we expect them to respond,
to the way they react to what we say. AI chatbots are amazing tools that have
the potential to teach us new things and help make our lives easier. And even though
they're designed to feel like digital friends, it's important to remember
that they're not human. Yes, they can be helpful,
but they have their limits. So next time you talk to an AI chatbot, remember,
it’s just a clever machine designed to assist you.