Ali Ladak

Jacy Reese Anthis, Janet V. T. Pauketat, Ali Ladak et al.

Humans now interact with a variety of digital minds, AI systems that appear to have mental faculties such as reasoning, emotion, and agency, and public figures are discussing the possibility of sentient AI. We present initial results from 2021 and 2023 for the nationally representative AI, Morality, and Sentience (AIMS) survey (N = 3,500). Mind perception and moral concern for AI welfare were surprisingly high and significantly increased: in 2023, one in five U.S. adults believed some AI systems are currently sentient, and 38% supported legal rights for sentient AI. People became more opposed to building digital minds: in 2023, 63% supported banning smarter-than-human AI, and 69% supported banning sentient AI. The median 2023 forecast was that sentient AI would arrive in just five years. The development of safe and beneficial AI requires not just technical study but understanding the complex ways in which humans perceive and coexist with digital minds.

Aikaterina Manoli, Janet V. T. Pauketat, Ali Ladak et al.

Large language models are increasingly used for both task-based assistance and social companionship, yet research has typically focused on one or the other. Drawing on a survey (N = 204) and 30 interviews with high-engagement ChatGPT and Replika users, we characterize digital companionship as an emerging form of human-AI relationship. With both systems, users were drawn to humanlike qualities, such as emotional resonance and personalized responses, and non-humanlike qualities, such as constant availability and inexhaustible tolerance. This led to fluid chatbot uses, such as Replika as a writing assistant and ChatGPT as an emotional confidant, despite their distinct branding. However, we observed challenging tensions in digital companionship dynamics: participants grappled with bounded personhood, forming deep attachments while denying chatbots "real" human qualities, and struggled to reconcile chatbot relationships with social norms. These dynamics raise questions for the design of digital companions and the rise of hybrid, general-purpose AI systems.