"When you have a conversation with a chatbot, it’s clear that you’re talking to software, not a human. The conversation feels stiff. But some bots are adept at shooting the breeze, a skill that can make it hard to know you’re conversing with code. “Disclosure is going to be really important here,” says Woodrow Hartzog, a law professor at Samford University. “Problems can come up when people think they’re dealing with humans, but really they’re dealing with bots.”
But that welcome message doesn’t necessarily disclose that people are interacting with a bot. After all, Alexa, Amazon’s popular bot-in-hardware device is simply a woman’s name. “To the extent that the name doesn’t identify the bot, then this form of notice is problematic,” says Hartzog. “But if your product says, ‘My name is Chatterbot, I’m an automated digital assistant,’ then you’re at least put on notice that you’re dealing with something that is not human.”"
- Date Published:04/13/2016
- Original Publication:Wired