Conference item
The double-edged sword of anthropomorphism in LLMs
- Abstract:
- Humans may have evolved to be “hyperactive agency detectors”. Upon hearing a rustle in a pile of leaves, it would be safer to assume that an agent, like a lion, hides beneath (even if there may ultimately be nothing there). Can this evolutionary cognitive mechanism—and related mechanisms of anthropomorphism—explain some of people’s contemporary experience with using chatbots (e.g., ChatGPT, Gemini)? In this paper, we sketch how such mechanisms may engender the seemingly irresistible anthropomorphism of large language-based chatbots. We then explore the implications of this within the educational context. Specifically, we argue that people’s tendency to perceive a “mind in the machine” is a double-edged sword for educational progress: Though anthropomorphism can facilitate motivation and learning, it may also lead students to trust—and potentially over-trust—content generated by chatbots. To be sure, students do seem to recognize that LLM-generated content may, at times, be inaccurate. We argue, however, that the rise of anthropomorphism towards chatbots will only serve to further camouflage these inaccuracies. We close by considering how research can turn towards aiding students in becoming digitally literate—avoiding the pitfalls caused by perceiving agency and humanlike mental states in chatbots.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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- Files:
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 206.4KB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.3390/proceedings2025114004
Authors
+ National Research Foundation, Singapore
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- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/03cpyc314
- Grant:
- AISG3-GV-2023-012
- Programme:
- AI Singapore Programme
+ Wellcome Trust
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- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/029chgv08
- Grant:
- 203132/Z/16/Z
+ NIHR Oxford Musculoskeletal Biomedical Research Centre
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- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/00aps1a34
- Grant:
- NIHR203316
- Publisher:
- MDPI
- Journal:
- Proceedings More from this journal
- Volume:
- 114
- Issue:
- 1
- Article number:
- 4
- Publication date:
- 2025-02-26
- Acceptance date:
- 2025-02-07
- Event title:
- Online Workshop on Adaptive Education: Harnessing AI for Academic Progress
- Event location:
- Ulster
- Event website:
- https://blogs.ulster.ac.uk/adaptiveai/teaching/
- Event start date:
- 2024-04-12
- Event end date:
- 2024-04-12
- DOI:
- EISSN:
-
2504-3900
- ISSN:
-
2504-3900
- Language:
-
English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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2093324
- Local pid:
-
pubs:2093324
- Deposit date:
-
2025-03-03
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Reinecke et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2025
- Rights statement:
- © 2025 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/).
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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