Should we be kind to machines (for our own sake, really)?

The useful part

Now we chat, negotiate, apologise and occasionally vent to systems that, by any reasonable measure, couldn't care less. Whether our interactions with AI shape how we talk to actual humans is something researchers have been chasing for years. Voice assistants brought it into focus a decade ago, and large language models have given the matter a new urgency.

How it works

• Somehow, users opened up, shared intimate details, and treated the machine as though it understood them.
• The answers are more layered and more consequential than the question might initially suggest, especially for teams building these products.
• It started long before Siri To understand where we are now, it helps to go back to 1966 and a program called ELIZA.

What to take from it

Created at MIT by computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum, it was designed to mimic a specific style of therapist: one who responds mostly by reflecting your own words back at you as questions. The reaction was so intense that Weizenbaum's own secretary reportedly asked him to leave the room so she could speak with it privately.

Details worth keeping

We know it has no feelings, no preferences, no skin in the game. The machine's half of the conversation keeps getting bigger. The way we talk to technology has always said something about us.