Should We Trust AI to Cure Loneliness? : Ethical, Psychological, and Sociotechnical Perspectives

Sammanfattning

With the rise in AI usage and the gap of knowledge of how it may affect different groups of people,this thesis aimed to grow the body of research by performing a study that compared how differentusers were comfortable interacting with AI chatbots, based on how lonely they were. The studyused a survey to gather data, mainly collecting quantitative data. It used an adapted Almere modelto assess AI acceptance, the De Jong Gierveld Loneliness Scale to access participants lonelinessscores and a scenario-based approach to measure participants comfort levels in different scenarios.The findings showed that severely lonely individuals were more comfortable asking AI chatbotsintimate and personal questions compared to non-lonely and moderately lonely individuals. Thisshow that when someone who is severely lonely feels the need for companionship or socialconnection, they may be more comfortable turning to an AI for emotional support, which, althoughpotentially offering short-term relief, may in the long-term lead to risks of forming emotionaldependency with AI, further exacerbating their condition.