Critical perspectives towards conversational technologies: development of a chatbot questioning the relation to intelligent technologies
(2025) XLV VAKKI Symposium — Location: Vaasa (13.February.2025)
Files
VAKKISymposiumLZ.ppt
Restricted Access - Microsoft Powerpoint
- 5.94 MB
Details
- Authors
- Abstract
- The advent of chatbots has transformed user-technology relationships, supporting a communicative paradigm strongly based on vocal or textual interaction. This has been redefining established practices such as news reception and verification, information searching, or house automation. This recently popularized mode of interaction with technology based on natural language has raised concerns regarding the potential for bias to be introduced through conversations perceived as human-like (Abercrombie et al., 2023). Additionally, these conversational technologies being called “intelligent” generate inaccurate representations (Andler, 2023), while mirroring users’ behaviors to enhance engagement. There is also a risk of perpetuating existing inequalities (Davis, 2023) due to the possibility of individuals being more inclined to accept representations reproduced by a chatbot, or to be less discerning about the sources from which information is derived. It is hypothesized that conversational interactions may foster emotional engagement with chatbots (Gkinko & Elbanna, 2021), thereby reducing critical barriers. In this context, it therefore seems essential to develop users’ critical thinking skills regarding chatbots to address these various challenges. The field of media education and media literacy appears particularly relevant to foster these critical perspectives as it seeks to cultivate critical, social, creative, and autonomous user engagement with media (Fastrez, 2010). Our research focus on identifying media education skills necessary for a critical approach to chatbots. By considering media primarily as a human activity and practice (Anderson & Meyer, 1988), we focus on how chatbots can simulate conversation and the role these interactions can play within users’ media practices. These conversations may contribute to blur the line between the material environment with which individuals are interacting, and the social distribution of cognition with other individuals, as chatbots embody both these aspects (Hutchins, 1997). By using an iterative design-based research approach, we are conceiving a chatbot focusing on the three types of skills required to foster a critical user engagement: informational, social and technical dimensions (Fastrez, 2010). We propose the development of a fourth dimension, related to the capacity for reflection regarding interactions with a given medium and its instrumental use. This dimension is further enriched by the intellectual partnership enabled by these technological objects (Salomon et al., 1991; Lévy, 1995). This chatbot will be made available for use in classrooms, with the support of teachers as facilitators in the critical approach to the chatbot, but also in a stand-alone version accessible online. It will focus on the reliability of the information shared by the tool, as of its capacity to enhance self-reflection on the discourse vehiculated by the chatbot and the effects it has on users.
- Affiliations
Citations
Zander, L., & Jacques, J. (2025). Critical perspectives towards conversational technologies: development of a chatbot questioning the relation to intelligent technologies. XLV VAKKI Symposium, Vaasa. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/241528