Four Perspectives on the Psychology of AI Use

Marley Ireland, Evelyn L. Lindenburg, John D. Mayer, Ryan Moran, Nick Smith, J.D./Ph.D., (University of New Hampshire)

The symposium begins with a discussion of the technosocial context of contemporary AI and, next, examines the psychological and philosophical issues around its use.

Three talks describe theoretical issues: The first talk, on the aforementioned technosocial context of AI, which examines human evolution related to individual differences and the communication of such differences over a distance (e.g., via gossip), over increasing numbers of recipients, and over increasingly virtual media (e.g., online meetings, AI representations), that provided the context within which present AI use grew.

The second theoretical topic concerns the appearance of character archetypes in LLMs and how research can explore how LLMs both reflect and modulate human personality.

These two talks are followed by an empirical report (N = 324) of the use of AI as companions and how such use relates to the Big Five traits and personal intelligence
(the capacity to understand personality in oneself and other people). The final
presentation returns to the philosophical issues around AI-mediated relationships: Is it okay to use AI when issuing an apology.