short-paper

Personification of the Amazon Alexa: BFF or a Mindless Companion

Authors:

Irene Lopatovska,

Harriet WilliamsAuthors Info & Claims

CHIIR '18: Proceedings of the 2018 Conference on Human Information Interaction & Retrieval

Pages 265 - 268

https://doi.org/10.1145/3176349.3176868

Published: 01 March 2018 Publication History

Abstract

The conversational nature of intelligent personal assistants (IPAs) has the potential to trigger personification tendencies in users, which in turn can translate into consumer loyalty and satisfaction. We conducted a study of Amazon Alexa usage and explored the manifestations and possible correlates of users' personification of Alexa. The data were collected via diary instrument from nineteen Alexa users over four days. Less than half of the participants reported personification behaviors. Most of the personification reports can be characterized as mindless politeness (saying 'thank you' and 'please' to Alexa). Two participants expressed deeper personification by confessing their love and reprimanding Alexa. A new study is underway to understand whether expressions of personifications are caused by users' emotional attachments or skepticism about technology's intelligence.

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https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642900
Liu ZLi HChen AZhang RLee Y(2024)Understanding Public Perceptions of AI Conversational Agents: A Cross-Cultural AnalysisProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642840(1-17)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
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Zguda PWróbel AGajewski PIndurkhya B(2024)“He Can Walk, He Just Doesn’t Want To” - On Machine/Human-Likeness of Robots in Polish Children’s PerceptionHuman-Computer Interaction10.1007/978-3-031-60412-6_17(221-239)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2024
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Index Terms

Personification of the Amazon Alexa: BFF or a Mindless Companion
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)

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cover image ACM Conferences

CHIIR '18: Proceedings of the 2018 Conference on Human Information Interaction & Retrieval

March 2018

402 pages

ISBN:9781450349253

DOI:10.1145/3176349

General Chairs:
Chirag Shah
Rutgers University, USA
,
Nicholas J. Belkin
Rutgers University, USA
,
Program Chairs:
Katriina Byström
Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway
,
Jeff Huang
Brown University, USA
,
Falk Scholer
RMIT University, Australia

Copyright © 2018 ACM.

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Published: 01 March 2018

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CHIIR '18

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CHIIR '18: Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval

March 11 - 15, 2018

NJ, New Brunswick, USA

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CHIIR '18 Paper Acceptance Rate 22 of 57 submissions, 39%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 55 of 163 submissions, 34%

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Cited By

Wenzel KKaufman G(2024)Designing for Harm Reduction: Communication Repair for Multicultural Users' Voice InteractionsProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642900(1-17)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642900
Liu ZLi HChen AZhang RLee Y(2024)Understanding Public Perceptions of AI Conversational Agents: A Cross-Cultural AnalysisProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642840(1-17)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642840
Zguda PWróbel AGajewski PIndurkhya B(2024)“He Can Walk, He Just Doesn’t Want To” - On Machine/Human-Likeness of Robots in Polish Children’s PerceptionHuman-Computer Interaction10.1007/978-3-031-60412-6_17(221-239)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-60412-6_17
Tschopp MGieselmann MSassenberg K(2023)Servant by default? How humans perceive their relationship with conversational AICyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace10.5817/CP2023-3-917:3Online publication date: 30-Jun-2023
https://doi.org/10.5817/CP2023-3-9
Pooley AMay AMitchell V(2023)Furthering the Development of Virtual Agents and Communication Robot Devices through the Consideration of the Temporal HomeMultimodal Technologies and Interaction10.3390/mti71101047:11(104)Online publication date: 13-Nov-2023
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Seymour WZhan XCoté MSuch J(2023)A Systematic Review of Ethical Concerns with Voice AssistantsProceedings of the 2023 AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society10.1145/3600211.3604679(131-145)Online publication date: 8-Aug-2023
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You YTsai CLi YMa FHeron CGui X(2023)Beyond Self-diagnosis: How a Chatbot-based Symptom Checker Should RespondACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction10.1145/358995930:4(1-44)Online publication date: 31-Mar-2023
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Dumaru PAl-Ameen M(2023)“After she fell asleep, it went to my next podcast, which was about a serial killer”: Unveiling Needs and Expectations Regarding Parental Control within Digital AssistantCompanion Publication of the 2023 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing10.1145/3584931.3607019(17-21)Online publication date: 14-Oct-2023
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Seymour WSuch J(2023)Ignorance is Bliss? The Effect of Explanations on Perceptions of Voice AssistantsProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35794977:CSCW1(1-24)Online publication date: 16-Apr-2023
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Ribino P(2023)The role of politeness in human–machine interactions: a systematic literature review and future perspectivesArtificial Intelligence Review10.1007/s10462-023-10540-156:S1(445-482)Online publication date: 27-Jun-2023
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