ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2025
The benefits and dangers of anthropomorphic conversational agents.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed.
- Tool or Companion? Reframing Conversational AI to Prevent Psychological Harm.JMIR mental health · 2026Review
- Simulated self-assessment in large language models: A psychometric approach to AI self-efficacy.Computers in human behavior. Artificial humans · 2026Article
- Six misconceptions about large language models: A minimal model and diagnostic taxonomy.PNAS nexus · 2026Article
- Ethical Considerations in Personal Health Large Language Models.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Article
- Characterizing the spiral: potential mechanisms in AI-associated delusions.NPP - digital psychiatry and neuroscience · 2026Review
- Anthropomorphic AI and Consumer Skepticism: A Behavioral Study of Trust and Adoption in Fragile Economies.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- TechnologicalNature. Mental health · 2026Article
- Metaphors of AI indicate that people increasingly perceive AI as warm and human-like.Communications psychology · 2026Article
- Prospective multi-centre evaluation of guideline-based artificial intelligence to streamline multidisciplinary tumour board.Frontiers in oncology · 2026Article
- The imaginary nature of human-AI relationships: a perspective integrating Buddhist psychology and the psychology of anthropomorphism.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Computational hermeneutics: evaluating generative AI as a cultural technology.Frontiers in artificial intelligence · 2026Article
- The Embodied Hijack: when Pleistocene minds meet disembodied artificial intelligence.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Delusional Experiences Emerging From AI Chatbot Interactions or "AI Psychosis".JMIR mental health · 2025Review
- Shoggoths, Sycophancy, Psychosis, Oh My: Rethinking Large Language Model Use and Safety.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Article
- Mindbench.ai: an actionable platform to evaluate the profile and performance of large language models in a mental healthcare context.NPP - digital psychiatry and neuroscience · 2025Article
- Dialogues with large language models reduce conspiracy beliefs even when the AI is perceived as human.PNAS nexus · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
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Abstract
A growing body of research suggests that the recent generation of large language model (LLMs) excel, and in many cases outpace humans, at writing persuasively and empathetically, at inferring user traits from text, and at mimicking human-like conversation believably and effectively-without possessing any true empathy or social understanding. We refer to these systems as "anthropomorphic conversational agents" to aptly conceptualize the ability of LLM-based systems to mimic human communication so convincingly that they become increasingly indistinguishable from human interlocutors. This ability challenges the many efforts that caution against "anthropomorphizing" LLMs, attaching human-like qualities to nonhuman entities. When the systems themselves exhibit human-like qualities, calls to resist anthropomorphism will increasingly fall flat. While the AI industry directs much effort into improving the reasoning abilities of LLMs-with mixed results-the progress in communicative abilities remains underappreciated. In this perspective, we aim to raise awareness for both the benefits and dangers of anthropomorphic agents. We ask: should we lean into the human-like abilities, or should we aim to dehumanize LLM-based systems, given concerns over anthropomorphic seduction? When users cannot tell the difference between human interlocutors and AI systems, threats emerge of deception, manipulation, and disinformation at scale. We suggest that we must engage with anthropomorphic agents across design and development, deployment and use, and regulation and policy-making. We outline in detail implications and associated research questions.
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