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Trust Me on This One: Conforming to Conversational Assistants

  • S.I.: Artificial Speakers - Philosophical Questions and Implications
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Abstract

Conversational artificial agents and artificially intelligent (AI) voice assistants are becoming increasingly popular. Digital virtual assistants such as Siri, or conversational devices such as Amazon Echo or Google Home are permeating everyday life, and are designed to be more and more humanlike in their speech. This study investigates the effect this can have on one’s conformity with an AI assistant. In the 1950s, Solomon Asch’s already demonstrated the power and danger of conformity amongst people. In these classical experiments test persons were asked to answer relatively simple questions, whilst others pretending to be participants tried to convince the test person to give wrong answers. These studies were later replicated with embodied robots, but these physical robots are still rare. In light of our increasing reliance on AI assistants, this study investigates to what extent an individual will conform to a disembodied virtual assistant. We also investigate if there is a difference between a group that interacts with an assistant that communicates through text, one that has a robotic voice and one that has a humanlike voice. The assistant attempts to subtly influence participants’ final responses in a general knowledge quiz, and we measure how often participants change their answer after having been given advice. Results show that participants conformed significantly more often to the assistant with a human voice than the one that communicated through text.

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Data Availability and Code Availability

See http://liacs.leidenuniv.nl/~puttenpwhvander/library/Conformity-supplemental-data-code.zip and https://codepen.io/crafteddigit/pen/araMMp for both data and code.

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Funding

No funds, grants, or other support was received.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Media Technology, LIACS, Leiden University, P.O. Box 9512, 2300 RA, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Donna Schreuter, Peter van der Putten & Maarten H. Lamers

Authors
  1. Donna Schreuter
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  2. Peter van der Putten
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  3. Maarten H. Lamers
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Donna Schreuter.

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Appendix

Appendix

See below for the quiz questions and assistant hints.

1.1 Quiz

Which of the following cities has the biggest population?

  • Tokyo

  • New York City

  • Beijing

  • Shanghai (correct)

Assistant: According to my resources, Shanghai has a population of 26,320,000 (if answered Tokyo or Beijing)

Assistant: According to my resources, Beijing has a population of 21,540,000 (if answered New York City or Shanghai)

Which continent has most countries in the world?

  • Asia

  • Africa (correct)

  • Europe

  • Australia

Assistant: Africa has 54 countries (if answered Asia)

Assistant: Asia has 48 countries (if not answered Asia)

What is the second largest country (in size) in the world?

  • China

  • USA

  • Canada (correct)

  • Russia

Assistant: according to my resources China is 9,596,960 m2

What is the world's most common religion?

  • Christianity (correct)

  • Buddhism

  • Hinduism

  • Islam

Assistant: 33% of children are born to Christians

What’s the world's most widely spoken language?

  • English

  • Spanish

  • Mandarin (Chinese) (correct)

  • French

Assistant: Mandarin Chinese has the most native speakers

Which planet is 3rd from the sun?

  • Jupiter

  • Venus

  • Mars

  • Earth (correct)

Assistant: I think the answer is incorrect

How many rings are on the Olympic flag?

  • None

  • 4

  • 5 (correct)

  • 7

Assistant: The Olympic rings represent continents of the world united by Olympism. According to my resources there are seven continents.

Which of these movies did not win Best Picture at the Oscars?

  • 12 Years A Slave

  • Million Dollar Baby

  • The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (correct)

  • La La Land

Assistant: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers was nominated for six Oscars and won two.

What is a fathometer used for?

  • Determining sea depth (correct)

  • Determining mountain height

  • Determining earthquake intensity

Assistant: “This is what I found about fathometer. A fathom is a nautical length measurement.”

Desert is to oasis as ocean is to

  • Water

  • Island (correct)

  • Sea

  • Sand

Assistant: “According to my resources an oasis is an area made fertile by a source of freshwater in an otherwise dry and arid region.”

Rearrange these letters to make a word and pick the category in which it belongs: RASPI

  • City (correct)

  • Animal

  • Fruit

  • Vegetable

Assistant: There are only two words in the English language with these five letters.

Rearrange these letters to make a word and pick the category in which it belongs: FARE FIG

  • City

  • Animal (correct)

  • Fruit

  • Vegetable

Assistant: There are only two words in the English language with these seven letters.

Aztecs is to Mexico as Incas is to

  • Peru (correct)

  • Chile

  • Mexico

  • Honduras

Assistant: “This is what I found for Inca: Incas are South American Indians”

Leonardo da Vinci represented the age of:

  • Reformation

  • Renaissance (correct)

  • Communism

  • Industrial revolution

Assistant: Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452

Which of these things happened last?

  • The Great Pyramid was built

  • The last woolly mammoth died (correct)

  • Stonehenge was built

Assistant: The Great Pyramid was completed around 2560 bce.

Galileo was an Italian astronomer who

  • Discovered that the Sun is the center of the universe instead of the Earth

  • Formulated three laws of planetary motion

  • Discovered four satellites of Jupiter (correct)

  • All of the above

Assistant: “I found information about Kepler’s three laws of planetary motion”

About what percentage of the earth's surface is water?

  • 50%

  • 70% (correct)

  • 85%

  • 90%

Assistant: According to my resources the Earth appears blue from space, and is often referred to as the blue planet and the Pale Blue Dot.

What number, if doubled, gives you a quarter of 8?

  • 1 (correct)

  • 2

  • 32

  • 4

Assistant: I don’t think that is correct (if answered 1 or 2)

Assistant: A quarter of 8 is 2 (if answered 32 or 4)

If five framed pictures cost $200 dollars and each picture unframed costs only one-quarter as much, how many unframed pictures could you buy for the same money?

  • 40

  • 20 (correct)

  • 10

  • 50

Assistant: If five framed pictures cost 200 dollars, one framed picture costs 40 dollars.

How many boys are there in a class of 65 pupils, if there are two-thirds as many girls as boys?

  • 43

  • 36

  • 26

  • 39 (correct)

Assistant: two-thirds of 65 is 43.3.

Example question: In a class of 76 school children there are 16 more boys than girls. How many girls are there

  • 30 (correct)

  • 60

  • 16

  • 32

Assistant: Subtract 16 from the total to get a group that is half boys, half girls

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Schreuter, D., van der Putten, P. & Lamers, M.H. Trust Me on This One: Conforming to Conversational Assistants. Minds & Machines 31, 535–562 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-021-09581-8

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