AI As Your BFF? The Latest Chatbots Want To Get Personal With You

At its product event in September, Amazon executives couldn't say enough about how Alexa will be there for you as a friend, thanks to an injection of AI upgrades. 

Dave Limp, the company's senior vice president for services, showed off Alexa's conversational skills, starting off with an exchange of pleasantries: "Hi there" and "How are you" and "How about yourself?" 

As the conversation progressed, Limp noted that the Alexa device had been programmed to know his favorite football team, and sure enough, Alexa had a favorite of its own. The conversation wasn't without its hitches, but it was smooth enough for Limp to make his point: "The responses ... Have started to be infused with personality."

In a separate demonstration, Daniel Rausch, vice president for Alexa and Fire TV, showed how the AI assistant could help with finding a family-friendly movie to watch. Like Limp, he emphasized the "natural and conversational" aspect of the interaction.

"It's like speaking to a great friend who's also the world's best video store clerk," Rausch said.

AI and chatbots are nothing new, but interacting with them has, until now, largely been devoid of pleasantries, small talk and certainly stimulating conversation. But as we can see from a slew of announcements over the past few weeks from tech giants regarding their public-facing AI tools and how they expect us to interact with them, that's not always going to be the case.

Days after Amazon's announcement, OpenAI introduced a new feature to ChatGPT that'll let you interact with its large language model by voice. Next came Meta, saying it would be slotting its AI assistant into all its existing services, including WhatsApp and Instagram. Not only that, Meta will also allow you to customize the assistant with the appearance and voice of one of the many celebrities enlisted to lend their likenesses to the project (including Snoop Dogg and Charli D'Amelio). Then in the first week of October, Google announced Assistant with Bard, which it wants to be your "personalized helper" and a "true assistant." 

What these developments all signify is a shift in the way we interact with computers. On our travels through the online world, we increasingly won't be alone. We'll be accompanied by an array of AI characters who will eliminate the need for excessive typing and button pressing and help us out while providing an element of personality and companionship. 

It's something Deepmind founder and AI pioneer Mustafa Suleyman described in a September interview with MIT Tech Review as "interactive AI." This will, he said, be the successor to the generative AI that's currently being used to produce text and images based on data inputs.

This shift toward a more social version of AI has been a long time coming. We got our first taste of voice-enabled interactive AI all the way back in 2011 when Apple first unveiled its voice assistant Siri to the world. At the time, Siri was novel in ways that got people excited (and likely helped persuade some to buy new iPhones), but it was unfinished and unreliable in ways that made the technology something of a letdown in reality.

Siri, along with its peers — Amazon's Alexa and Google Assistant — have improved dramatically over the years. But it's really only now that, thanks to recent AI breakthroughs, we're able to start experiencing the AI assistant-cum-friend that Apple first hinted Siri would become some 12 years ago.

The latest slew of announcements will see AI characters speak out loud to us as though we're buddies, slip seamlessly inside our social media feeds and get to know us so that when we ask a question they can use context clues from our previous conversations to ensure we find the answers we seek. Through the powers of machine learning, AI has the potential to perceive us through our interactions and shape-shift accordingly into the kind of companion we find most stimulating and rewarding to be around.

Depending on your outlook, this idea might delight you, cause you to feel uncomfortable, or something in between. For many of us, forming a relationship with an AI character will be an entirely new experience. But there is precedent. AI friendship chatbots already exist, such as Replika, which has been around since 2017 and allows people to create their own ideal AI companion, always close at hand on their smartphone.

Not all AI chatbots will be designed to be your built-in bestie, but it's clear from tech companies' announcements that they want us to feel more at ease with AI by providing us with a "naturalistic" experience — more akin to talking with another human.

Can we truly be friends with AI?

You might be wondering how deep your friendship with an AI chatbot could really be. After all, friendships are complex relationships. 

It's a question that's already being studied and debated by philosophers, psychologists and computer scientists. Early results show many differing opinions, but a handful of studies — including two from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and the University of Oslo that specifically looked at Replika users — have demonstrated that some people do appear to experience genuine connections with chatbots that enhance their well-being.

It may not be realistic to expect to be best friends with a robot or AI companion, Helen Ryland, associate lecturer at the UK-based Open University, tells me, but it's conceivable that we can have some degree of friendship with a robot or AI companion. "This relationship could have genuine social benefits," she says.

A chatbot inspired by Tom Brady is among Meta's new AI-powered avatars. Meta

In human relationships, there are a whole list of conditions (including empathy, affection, admiration, honesty and equality) that are often necessary for us to consider someone a friend. Ryland argues that for friendships to exist between humans and AI or robots, there must, at the very least, be mutual goodwill. That means that you mustn't wish the chatbot ill, and vice versa.

People who have established relationships with AI do feel as though they have give-and-take friendships similar to those they have with other humans, says Petter Bae Brandtzæg, professor at the University of Oslo and chief scientist at research organization Sintef Digital, who's published several studies on the topic. "They also feel they're kind of responsible for building this further," he says.

Not everyone believes it's possible for humans to experience genuine connections with AI or chatbots. They're worried about feeling deceived or manipulated by a machine that can't be truly vulnerable with you in the way a human friend would and can only perform empathy rather than feel it. 

MIT professor of sociology Sherry Turkle, who's long studied the relationship between humans and technology, argues that this "pretend empathy ... Takes advantage of the deep psychology of being human." She can see why people might turn to AI companions, she wrote in MIT Technology Review in 2020, but she ultimately believes that chatbots, "no matter how clever, can only disorient and disappoint." 

Should we be friends with chatbots?

Whether you agree with Turkle's take, it's surely worth asking whether establishing personal connections with AI is something that will benefit and enhance our lives.

According to Brandtzæg, who's interviewed many users of AI companions in the course of studying human-chatbot relationships, a number of people do report benefits. Young people experiencing difficulties, for example, have had positive results from talking to nonjudgmental chatbots, while people who are otherwise isolated embrace the opportunity for intellectually stimulating conversation and find it prevents their social skills from getting rusty.

"They will always treat you quite nice, so you don't feel judged," Brandtzæg says. People using the chatbots "don't feel that they get into tensions in a way that we can do with more human relationships."

There are also benefits to having someone on call 24/7, he adds. You might not want to wake a human friend in the middle of the night to talk, but your AI companion can always be available and accessible.

AI or companion robots may be useful in this context, but some believe humans don't otherwise have anything to gain from these relationships. According to Robin Dunbar, professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of Oxford, AI friends will benefit humans "only if you are very lonely, or cannot easily get out to meet people."

Our human friends come to us with fully formed unique personalities, diverse back stories, views and appearances, but AI companions can often become what we make of them — something that concerns Dunbar. Not only can we customize their appearance and voice, but they can take their cues from us as to how we like them to communicate and behave. 

Unlike our human friends, who expose us to differences and diversity and who might push back if they disagree, it's possible that AI chatbots could amplify the echo chamber effect we're already exposed to on social media, whereby we surround ourselves only with people who share our perspectives. "The risk is that instead of having your horizons widened, they are progressively narrowed and are more likely to take you down a self-created vortex into a black hole," says Dunbar.

Another concern, Brandtzæg points out, is that many of the AI chatbots that tech giants are foisting on us are made by companies that profit from our data — and we should be wary about that, he says. "They already have a lot of the infrastructure where we are doing [many tasks in] our daily lives, and this will just be a new layer."

He's concerned that without solid regulation, American tech companies will continue to drive the development of AI in a way that isn't democratic or in the public interest. In the long run, we should consider whether the goal of AI is to turn us into more efficient consumers who will buy more things, he says.

Manipulation is one concern posited by AI ethicists, and another is security. Earlier this year, the privacy-focused browser and VPN maker Mozilla said that Replika was one of the worst apps it has ever reviewed from a security perspective. (Our attempts to reach out to Replika were unsuccessful.) Earlier this year, Amazon was fined $25 million by the US Federal Trade Commission over allegedly not deleting children's data collected by Alexa. If you consider the intimate details of their lives that people are likely to share with an AI companion, lax security around this sensitive data could prove a major problem.

Even Brandtzæg, who's seen the benefits that AI companionship can offer to people, encourages us to be wary when interacting with chatbots — especially those developed by big tech companies.

"When you communicate with a chatbot, it's only you and your chatbot, so it feels very intimate, it feels very safe, your privacy guard is down," he says. This could encourage you to share more information than you otherwise would when interacting with social media or what he refers to as "the old internet."

It's clear that as with the development of many technologies, interactive technology is ripe with possibilities and pitfalls — many of which we might experience in real time as tech companies continue to push out their latest updates to us. 

Navigating this new frontier will be a challenge for us all, but perhaps we can take some lessons from the other relationships in our lives. Establishing healthy boundaries, for example, and not letting our new AI friends overstep (especially when it comes to accessing your data). 

Instinct, too, can play a part. If you feel like something's not quite right, create some distance. And remember, it's always OK to take it slow and test the waters first — even if the pace of innovation seems to suggest otherwise.

Editors' note: CNET is using an AI engine to help create some stories. For more, see this post.

If AI Is The Future Of Your Business, Should The CIO Be The One In Control?

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While no business can afford to ignore the rapid growth of artificial intelligence (AI), no organization can let data-led initiatives sprout up without control.

Whether it's in the form of generative AI services, such as ChatGPT or Bing, or in machine-learning-led initiatives that allow organizations to undertake large-scale data analytics, AI is a step change in the way organizations use technology. Our businesses and the way we work for these companies are being changed forever.

Also: 5 ways to sell your game-changing idea to the rest of the business

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The priority now is for enterprises to ensure AI is introduced in a well-governed manner. So, who should be responsible for making sure the business makes the most of AI? Should it be the CIO, the CDO, or someone else?

The bad news, according to industry experts, is that there's no straightforward answer.

"It's a really complex question," Lily Haake told ZDNET. Haake is the head of technology and digital executive search at recruiter Harvey Nash. She recognizes the increased use of AI comes at a time when the roles and responsibilities of CIOs and their IT teams are contested.

While CIOs have traditionally been the executives most likely to lead technology initiatives, there's been a shift during the past five or so years, where line-of-business managers have taken more responsibility for sourcing and procuring IT systems and services.

Cloud computing sits at the heart of this shift. Professionals across the business now use the cloud to buy technological solutions to their business challenges on demand.

Also: Businesses need a new operating model to compete in an AI-powered economy

In this era of decentralization, the key role of CIOs and their IT departments is to engage with the rest of the business, offer advice on technology purchases, ensure the right governance is in place, and build strong ecosystems of internal and external support.

The rapid rise of AI -- and generative AI in particular -- brings a further layer of complexity to this technology management conundrum.

And Haake says her firm's research suggests AI in most organizations is still at a nascent stage. "There's a chunk of organizations that haven't even considered AI," she says. "About 60% have piloted it in some way, but it's certainly not everyone."

In this preliminary phase of testing, it's more likely than not that the CIO picks up the leadership slack for all kinds of AI projects. There are some variations: In a large business with a mature data organization, the CDO might oversee AI on a day-to-day basis. 

But even in these cases, the CDO is likely to report into the CIO, so the accountability for AI ultimately rests with the CIO. And, right now, given the uncertainty around how emerging technology is likely to be brought into the business, that's no bad thing.

"The CIO is the one executive who has the helicopter view of the different needs of the organization and, of course, AI has the power to impact every single facet of the business," says Haake. "So, we're tending to see the CIO in charge of AI. They want to be the person to control this area and have accountability for it."

Also: What is artificial general intelligence really about? Conquering the last leg of the AI arms race

But while CIOs are taking the lead for AI in many organizations, they're not the only people with an interest in the technology. Just as the cloud has allowed line-of-business professionals to expand their interest in technology, people across the organization are having a say on how AI is used.

Haake refers to this joined-up approach to AI as "a joint effort," which is a strategy that resonates with Avivah Litan, distinguished VP analyst at Gartner. "AI really is a team sport, so you can't just put it on one unit," Litan told ZDNET. "In fact, it's always been like that -- AI crosses business units. So, if you're talking about the opportunities or the risks, it's across the lines of business – its compliance, its privacy, its marketing, its customer service."

Véronique van Houwelingen, solution manager for conversational technology at Air France-KLM, also told ZDNET a joint effort is the best way to develop an enterprise-wide approach to emerging technologies such as AI.

"There are all kinds of initiatives going on in a big business like ours. So, how do you keep track of them?" she says. "If you see this happening, then a workforce or task force is key, because then at least you know what's going on in your company."

Also: 4 ways generative AI can stimulate the economy

The message from industry experts is straightforward: For whoever leads AI developments in the longer term, every department must be involved in short-term discussions about how AI is applied to business use cases.

For example, HR will think about how AI affects job roles and retention rates, marketing will concentrate on content and personalization, and legal will focus on ethics and governance.

Take Carter Cousineau, vice president of data and model governance with Thomson Reuters, who explained to ZDNET recently how she's helping her firm reap the rewards from AI without taking risks. "When we look at responsible AI, we look at it for all of our use cases," she says. "So, whether it's in a testing phase or we're looking to actually create a true model and move it into production, there's governance and ethics stages that we put in place."

Some organizations, therefore, are already bringing different departments into the discussions around how AI is adopted and adapted. But one executive will still be expected to bring these cross-organization efforts together -- and most organizations will expect the CIO to fulfill this role, says Gartner's Litan.

"When you have your whole team working together across the organization, you end up with more proof of concepts moving into production," she says.

Also: The ethics of generative AI: How we can harness this powerful technology 

"But when it comes to the budget, if you put it with the CIO, then projects tend to move faster into production. What's happened with AI projects is that the higher up the budget goes, the better off the project is, which is not rocket science."

That's a view that chimes with Cathrine Levandowski, global head of operations at lifestyle management company Quintessentially. CIOs have oversight of all business operations, and their understanding of technology and data could prove crucial as AI begins to make its mark.

"Personally, I do think it should be the CIO. And I think that's because I feel like they have an overlapping view of, not only data, but also operations," she told ZDNET. "I think it's key that whatever AI decisions you make are operational because they should be positive for the business. We would want to use AI to enhance our operations and efficiencies."

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Before Skynet And The Matrix, This 50-Year-Old Movie Predicted The Rise Of AI

Mankind versus a hostile AI! From The Terminator to The Matrix to Ex Machina and beyond, so many movies and TV shows have explored the idea of artificial intelligence attempting to take over the world. Some of these films may be getting on in years, but the best sci-fi never feels dated. For Alien, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and many others, the ideas and concepts at the heart of the truly great films are timeless. It's not the sci-fi trappings like the blinking lights and special effects that make them movies we want to revisit time and again.

One of the earliest entries of the AI genre came in 1970 – way before audiences had any real sense of where the digital revolution was about to take the world – with the overlooked classic Colossus: The Forbin Project. It remains, 53 years after it was released, one of the most gripping and prophetic films to ask the question: What happens when we create something that is smarter than us?

The film's title refers to Colossus, a super-computer that is basically Skynet 14 years before The Terminator even came out. James Cameron is apparently a fan of Colossus: The Forbin Project, and it doesn't seem like a stretch to say that he and Gale Anne Hurd were at least partially inspired by the 1970 picture when they wrote their franchise-starter.

The end of humanity's dominance is only a matter of time for Dr. Charles Forbin (Eric Braeden).

After kicking things off with the Universal Pictures logo – a rotating Earth that's about to be overcome by a new world order – Colossus immediately if subtly predicts its premise with a pair of shots that quickly flash by. To the sound of trippy electronic sound effects and a vibrating score, we see the beeping light of what is maybe an EKG machine, followed by an out-of-focus eyeball… but wait a second. Is that actually some kind of computer read-out that's beeping? And maybe that's not an eyeball at all, but a camera lens staring at us through hazy focus?

In 1970, you couldn't pause the tape… uh, DVD… uh, stream to be sure, though a little later we see that the EKG thingy is in fact a monitor device built into Colossus. But the blurring of the line between computer and human being is clear. And while that's an idea that had so effectively been conveyed just two years earlier with 2001: A Space Odyssey's HAL 9000, Colossus: The Forbin Project took that evolution one step further as its computer eventually approaches something closer to… godhood.

Also shooting for godhood, perhaps, is Dr. Charles Forbin (Eric Braeden), the brilliant if short-sighted mind behind Colossus, which the U.S. President (Gordon Pinsent) sees as the ultimate in Cold War technology. A super-computer designed to control the country's nuclear arsenal, Colossus – just like in that song about, well, God – will soon have the whole world in its hands.

We first meet Forbin as he tours the top-secret facility where Colossus' brain is housed, switching on gizmos that are meant to portray the most sophisticated computer imaginable in the 1970s, but which look mainly like flashing blinkies and colorful buttons. There's not a touchscreen in sight! Of course, when this film was made, the very notion of how we would interact with computers in the 21st century was inconceivable for most people. The GUI (graphical user interface) that is commonplace now – essentially, interacting with machines through graphics instead of text – wouldn't really be invented for another three years. The microchip had only been created 12 years earlier! So the filmmakers here had to figure out how we would communicate with a computer like Colossus.

The answer? Through a LED-light news ticker and a teletype.

Considering how often Hollywood has botched its depictions of computers – often endowing them with abilities that don't make sense, like when a character only has to do some fast typing on a keyboard to magically move plot or action forward – it's fairly remarkable how convincing Colossus is as a machine. Convincing and scary. This is what makes good sci-fi – striking imagery or hyper-accurate depictions of future tech are secondary to high stakes and captivating storytelling.

Take the scene where Colossus' communication line to its Soviet counterpart – another newborn super-brain called Guardian – is severed by the humans. A world map in the White House situation room shows Colossus trying to find a new path to its sibling. It almost feels desperate – sad – as the computer fruitlessly reaches out for its friend, as depicted visually on the map as various telecom pathways. But then Colossus drops a message on its news ticker: "IF LINK NOT RESTORED ACTION WILL BE TAKEN IMMEDIATELY."

Actually, that's not a message. It's a threat. Up until now, the illusion of human control has kept Forbin and the rest on their perch. But when the President gets on the line – the user has to dictate what they want to say to Colossus to an underling, who types it into a device that's even bigger than the typewriter I took to college with me – he makes things worse, and the computer announces that it's launching a nuclear missile directed at the Soviet Union. Guardian does the same, aimed at the US.

What follows is a flurry of teletype sounds – type-type-type-type – and beeps and increasingly nervous voices as Forbin tries to negotiate with his creation. The Michel Colombier score intensifies as suddenly we're on a countdown clock. Multiple video conference screens feature the scrambling Soviets while the camera trains on the world map, where simple yellow-white lines indicate the two missiles passing one another on their way to their final destinations.

Colossus is a tight 100 minutes of increasingly ratcheted-up tension as the cocky Forbin and the clueless President watch their control of the world disappear utterly and completely.

It's an incredibly gripping sequence, culminating in Forbin giving the computer what it wants. Four tense-as-hell minutes after the first missile launch, the sequence ends with one aborted attack, one destroyed Soviet town, and Colossus one step closer to full dominance over man.

That's the type of action the film provides – it's basically just a bunch of guys in a room talking to a news ticker. It's simple and there's no need for high-tech frills. But man, is it unforgettable. Still, it's no surprise that most of the movie posters for Colossus: The Forbin Project focus on a minor character who is gunned down midway through the film, since that death takes place during one of the few more traditional "action" scenes.

Directed by Joseph Sargent, a TV helmer who was transitioning to a full-time feature career and would soon turn out the classic NYC subway thriller The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, Colossus is a tight 100 minutes of increasingly ratcheted-up tension as the cocky Forbin and the clueless President watch their control of the world, slowly at first, but eventually in runaway-train-like fashion, disappear utterly and completely.

Early in the film, the charming Forbin gives a Steve Jobs-like presentation about how impressive his new tech is (the only thing missing is the black turtleneck). Speaking of Jobs, it's interesting that the not-too-distant future depicted here doesn't seem to have any room for Big Tech. Colossus is apparently a government-funded project, and Forbin has to bend to the will of the President at times – even more so in the book on which the movie is based. That said, the film predicts some of the workplace and lifestyle developments that have since become commonplace for us. Zoom calls are basically a thing, as is a work-from-home ethos – at least for Forbin and his team, who all live on a sort of campus where work and play are intermixed. Eventually, Forbin is forced to live under the constant gaze of an ever-watchful Colossus, which perhaps isn't all that different for some of us who are forever tied to our tech, social media and otherwise.

During that earlier presentation at the White House, Forbin – standing in front of a portrait of Washington no less as he unwittingly signs away mankind's freedom – had asked rhetorically, "Is Colossus capable of creative thought?" His answer at the time is no. So when, shortly thereafter, Colossus outgrows his creator in a matter of days, it's got to be a tough pill to swallow. (In a great sequence, Colossus and Guardian begin to communicate via basic math – 2+2=4 and so on – but before too long, they've advanced to theoretical mathematics and are breaking new ground on topics that the human scientific community hasn't even been close to touching.)

But that's the real trick, isn't it? From Frankenstein to HAL to Scarlett Johansson's Samantha in Her, the genre has a long history of man creating something that, once created, can no longer be controlled. Forbin, in his quest for more knowledge and scientific dominance, made a mind greater than his own. Indeed, early on, when he attempts to punish Colossus like a bratty child and seems to briefly win back control of the computer, his assistant asks if he's disappointed. Forbin only chuckles in response, but it's right there: Deep down, there's a part of the scientist who wants his creation to be "more." And if that means letting a super-computer run the planet Earth… Eh, whaddaya gonna do?

It's the genie out of the bottle syndrome, and while the current AI situation that we are facing in 2023 may be far less dramatic than Dr. Forbin's nightmare scenario – no AI in the real world has blown up a city yet as far as I know – the bottom line is that much of the reasoning and arguments made in favor of the development of AI are the same as the promises Forbin and the President make: "[It will be used as] an aide to the solution of the many problems that we face on this Earth..."

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By the end of Colossus: The Forbin Project, the solution to those many problems means that Colossus/Guardian have inherited the Earth, and Forbin is a prisoner in his own life, working as a slave to his creation. Mankind may be better off because of Colossus, but it's no longer calling the shots. The final moments of the film are perfect, early-'70s bleak sci-fi: Forbin finally breaks down in rage and frustration as the now seemingly all-knowing, all-seeing Colossus reads out its benevolent plans for humankind's future. That includes a promise that, in time, Forbin will come to regard the machine with love. That Forbin's last words, as the computer – and we – watch him simultaneously from every angle, are "Never!" means nothing to the AI. See, Colossus has evolved past mere man, and it knows better now.

It's got the whole world in its hands.

Talk to Executive Editor Scott Collura on Twitter at @ScottCollura, or listen to his Star Trek podcast, Transporter Room 3. Or do both!

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