Tailoring Generative AI Chatbots for Multiethnic Communities in Disaster Preparedness Communication: Extending the CASA Paradigm
This addresses disaster communication challenges for multiethnic communities, offering a tailored approach to improve preparedness.
The study developed GPT-4-powered chatbots to communicate hurricane preparedness to diverse residents, finding that variations in tone formality and cultural tailoring significantly affected perceptions of friendliness and credibility, which related to preparedness outcomes.
This study is among the first to develop different prototypes of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) chatbots powered by GPT-4 to communicate hurricane preparedness information to diverse residents. Drawing from the Computers Are Social Actors paradigm and the literature on disaster vulnerability and cultural tailoring, we conducted a between-subjects experiment with 441 Black, Hispanic, and Caucasian residents of Florida. Our results suggest that GenAI chatbots varying in tone formality and cultural tailoring significantly influence perceptions of their friendliness and credibility, which, in turn, relate to hurricane preparedness outcomes. These results highlight the potential of using GenAI chatbots to improve diverse communities' disaster preparedness.