Mirages: On Anthropomorphism in Dialogue Systems
Automated dialogue or conversational systems are anthropomorphised by
developers and personified by users. While a degree of anthropomorphism is
inevitable, conscious and unconscious design choices can guide users to
personify them to varying degrees. Encouraging users to relate to automated
systems as if they were human can lead to transparency and trust issues, and
high risk scenarios caused by over-reliance on their outputs. As a result,
natural language processing researchers have begun to investigate factors that
induce personification and develop resources to mitigate such effects. However,
these efforts are fragmented, and many aspects of anthropomorphism have yet to
be considered. In this paper, we discuss the linguistic factors that contribute
to the anthropomorphism of dialogue systems and the harms that can arise,
arguing that it can reinforce stereotypes of gender roles and notions of
acceptable language. We recommend that future efforts towards developing
dialogue systems take particular care in their design, development, release,
and description; and attend to the many linguistic cues that can elicit
personification by users.