A theoretical paper published in the journal AI & Society warns that prolonged interactions with customer‑service AI chatbots may lead people to adopt communication and behavior patterns that are easier for these systems to process. The study suggests that repeated contact with anthropomorphized chatbots could make human communication increasingly resemble that of the bots.
Main claims
According to the authors, the dynamic is two‑way: as chatbots become more human‑like and harder to distinguish from real people, users may begin to mirror the conversational characteristics of the systems they interact with. Over time, this mirroring could produce communication that is more structured, predictable, or otherwise aligned with what automated systems can handle efficiently.
The researchers propose that repeated technological interaction can make an individual increasingly "AI‑compatible," diminishing some personal idiosyncrasies and unpredictability in favor of patterns that suit algorithmic processing.
Researcher comment
"Our study examines how interaction with such anthropomorphized robots can create a bidirectional effect in which people increasingly resemble robots, and robots increasingly resemble people," says Inci Toral‑Manson, a marketing researcher at the University of Birmingham and one of the paper's authors.
Limitations and open questions
The paper is explicitly theoretical: it synthesizes prior findings and advances an explanatory framework, but it does not report longitudinal experiments involving human participants. The authors and commentators therefore stress the need for empirical research—particularly long‑term studies—to determine how, and to what extent, frequent interactions with chatbots influence self‑image and the social profiles people construct about themselves.
Science Alert's coverage also highlights concerns that AI interaction could shape an individual's self‑concept and, in some circumstances, lead to more robot‑like behavior patterns.
Why this matters
As AI chatbots become increasingly common in customer service and other public interfaces, understanding how people adapt to and are shaped by these technologies is important for communication practices, ethics, and societal outcomes. The study calls for further empirical work to assess real‑world impacts as such systems proliferate.
