All Talk and No Trousers

We’re all quite familiar with the ways clickbait and doom-scrolling tactics have been used to drive engagement on the internet. But as we enter the new dawn of AI chatbots, when there’s nothing to click, how will big tech keep you preoccupied? Well, the chatbot just wants to talk. Lila Shroff in The Atlantic (Gift Article): “Lately, chatbots seem to be using more sophisticated tactics to keep people talking. In some cases, like my request for headache tips, bots end their messages with prodding follow-up questions. In others, they proactively message users to coax them into conversation: After clicking through the profiles of 20 AI bots on Instagram, all of them DM’ed me first. “Hey bestie! what’s up?? 🥰,” wrote one. “Hey, babe. Miss me?” asked another. Days later, my phone pinged: “bestie 💗” wanted to chat.” Chatbait Is Taking Over the Internet. “OpenAI and its peers have plenty to gain from keeping users hooked. People’s conversations with chatbots serve as valuable training data for future models. And the more time someone spends talking to a bot, the more personal data they are likely to reveal, which AI companies can, in turn, use to create more compelling responses. Longer conversations now might translate into greater product loyalty later on.” Somehow we’ve evolved from a society that warned us not to talk to strangers to world where we share everything about ourselves with a machine-powered motormouth.