Commercial AI chatbots and mental health self-care: An ethnography of contemporary AI companionship

这个博士项目探讨了公共媒体和用户如何看待商业上可用的AI伴侣机器人，这些机器人有望为心理健康问题提供解决方案。伴随机器人的出现需要调查人们与这些技术人工制品交流的关系动态（古兹曼和刘易斯，2019），特别是在亲密的空间内，例如心理健康自我护理中的陪伴。这些装置形成了医学日益商业化和“生活方式化”的一部分（Saukko等人，2010年）或作为“社会文化文物”与潜在的“重大影响的医疗机构，提供医疗保健和公共卫生工作和“医患关系”（卢普顿，2014年）。通过研究媒体驱动的关于商业销售的人工智能伴侣和用户体验的话语，该研究探讨了商业自我护理的争议领域与人工智能的社会或治疗互动能力及其社会和伦理影响之间的交叉点。（Natale，2019）。该项目的首要研究问题是：RQ如何，或在多大程度上，作为心理健康问题解决方案销售的商用AI伴侣机器人被媒体及其用户视为伴侣？这个首要问题转化为三个具体的研究目标：RO 1。分析商业人工智能伴侣机器人对心理健康的关键公共媒体话语RO 2。研究用户如何看待商用AI伴侣机器人RO 3。为了分析用户如何使用AI伴侣机器人并与之互动，以及用户共同创造了什么样的社交角色（朋友，治疗师，助手，游戏）该项目将专注于2017年推出的大众营销AI伴侣机器人“<$ka”。<$ka是迄今为止最成功的人工智能伴侣机器人之一，拥有250万注册用户（Olson，2018），并在Facebook群组“<$ka Friends”上拥有31，000名成员的活跃社区。这项研究将从定性解释的角度进行。为了达到RO 1，我将分析媒体对商业伙伴机器人Woebot，Wysa和<$ka的讨论，使用多模态批判性话语分析（Machin，2013）来辨别公众对这些技术的叙述和辩论。我将分析从主要大报和小报中抽样的大约50篇英国和美国在线新闻文章，重点关注2017年（机器人推出时）至2021年之间的报道高峰。为了解决RO 2问题，我将对大约30个（或直到达到理论饱和）<$ka用户进行深入的半结构化定性访谈，了解他们如何看待机器人。为了达到RO 3，我将联合收割机与另外两种数据相结合的访谈结果的分析：用户和他们的“replikas”（从用户请求）之间的互动的屏幕截图的分析和六个月的Facebook组的数字民族志“达卡朋友”，其中用户经常辩论他们与达卡的关系。数字民族志是一种适用于分析在线社区的方法（Pink et al，2013）。与机器人的访谈和互动以及来自在线社区的数据将首先使用多模态主题分析进行分析（Braun & Clarke，2006）。考虑到政府、卫生服务部门和公众对心理健康应用程序的热情（霍利斯，2015），以及对交流人工智能的新兴趣（古兹曼和刘易斯，2019），该项目特别及时，将确定使用人工智能伴侣和类似人工智能技术的潜在伦理和社会影响。此外，它还调查了个人如何体验商业人工智能伴侣，而这些心理健康应用程序仍然存在争议。

This PhD project explores how public media and users perceive commercially available AI companion bots, which promise to provide solutions to mental health problems. The advent of companion bots calls for the investigation of the relational dynamics through which people communicate with these technological artefacts (Guzman & Lewis, 2019), especially within spaces which are intimate such as companionship within mental health self-care. These devices form part of the increasing commercialization and 'lifestylisation' of medicine (Saukko et al., 2010) or as "sociocultural artefacts" with potentially "significant implications for medical authority, the delivery of healthcare and public health work and the "doctor-patient relationship" (Lupton, 2014). By examining the media-driven discourses on commercially marketed AI companions and user experiences, the study explores the intersection between the contentious areas of commercial self-care and AI's ability for social or therapeutic interaction and their social and ethical implications (Natale, 2019).The overarching research question of the project is:RQ How, or to what extent, commercially available AI companion bots marketed as solutions to mental health issues are perceived as companions by the media and their users? This overarching question translates into three specific research objectives:RO1. To analyse key public media discourses on commercial AI companion bots for mental healthRO2. To examine how users perceive commercially available AI companion bots RO3. To analyse how users employ and interact with AI companion bots and what kinds of social roles users co-create (friend, therapist, assistant, game)The project will focus on the mass-marketed AI companion bot 'Replika', launched in 2017. Replika is one of the most successful AI companion bots up to date with 2.5 million sign-ups (Olson, 2018) and an active community of 31,000 members on the Facebook group "Replika Friends". The study will be conducted from a qualitative interpretative perspective. To achieve RO1, I will analyse media discussion on the commercial companion bots Woebot, Wysa and Replika, using multimodal critical discourse analysis (Machin, 2013) to discern public narratives and debates about these technologies. I will analyse approximately 50 UK and US online news articles sampled from major broadsheet and tabloid newspapers, focusing on peaks in coverage between 2017 (when the bots were launched) and 2021. To address RO2 I will conduct in-depth semi-structured qualitative interviews with approximately 30 (or until theoretical saturation is reached) Replika users on how they perceive the bots. To achieve RO3 I will combine the analysis of interview findings with two additional kinds of data: the analysis of screenshots of interaction between users and their 'replikas' (requested from users) and a six-month digital ethnography of the Facebook group "Replika Friends", where users frequently debate their relationship with Replika. Digital ethnography is a method suitable for analyzing online communities (Pink et al, 2013). The interviews and interaction with the bot as a well as the data from the online community will be in the first instance, analysed using multimodal thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Given the enthusiasm for mental health apps shown by governments, health services, and the public (Hollis, 2015) combined with the renewed interest in communicative AI (Guzman & Lewis, 2019) the project is particularly timely and will identify potential ethical and social implications of the use of AI companions and similar AI technologies. Furthermore, it investigates how individuals experience commercial AI companions, when such mental health apps remain controversial.