Degradation

"People may choose to build connections with human-like AI assistants over other humans, leading to a degradation of social connections between humans and a potential ‘retreat from the real’. The prevailing view that relationships with anthropomorphic AI are formed out of necessity – due to a lack of real-life social connections, for example (Skjuve et al., 2021) – is challenged by the possibility that users may indicate a preference for interactions with AI, citing factors such as accessibility (Merrill et al., 2022), customisability (Eriksson, 2022) and absence of judgement (Brandtzaeg et al., 2022)."Preference for AI-enabled connections, if widespread, may degrade the social connectedness that underpins critical aspects of our individual and group-level well-being (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2023). Moreover, users that grow accustomed to interactions with AI may impose the conventions of human–AI interaction on exchanges with other humans, thus undermining the value we place on human individuality and self-expression (see Chapter 11). Similarly, associations reinforced through human–AI interactions may be applied to expectations of human others, leading to harmful stereotypes becoming further entrenched. For example, default female gendered voice assistants may reinforce stereotypical role associations in real life (Lingel and Crawford, 2020; West et al., 2019)."