Attachment Figure Study 3: AI Chat App Interface Design

Working With:

• Dr. Omri Gillath, Department of Psychology, University of Kansas

• Dr, Michael Branicky, School of Engineering, University of Kansas

• Dr, John Symons, Department of Philosophy, University of Kansas

• Greg Thomas, Center for Design Research, University of Kansas

• Dr. Alexander Schoemann, Department of Psychology, East Carolina University

• Carlos Mbendera, Undergraduate Research Assistant

Project Brief

I was asked to join a multi-disciplinary research team investigating how AI might effect the ways that humans form close relationships. For this portion of the project I was asked to create a mobile app in which a subject can carry on a conversation with an AI chatbot agent, as well as collect occasional survey responses about that experience. Our research questions centered around whether conversing with the chat bot on a regular basis about personal topics would cause participants to form signs of an attachment to the bot.

I worked with our talented programmer Carlos to design the architecture for our app using the Parl.ai framework and Blender LLM based chat bot. The app was designed to run on iOS devices so that it could be distributed to participants through the app store.

Participants in the study would need to converse with the bot on a daily basis over the course of several weeks. I wanted to give the app a degree of personality and character so that it would feel less clinical to the participants.

Publication:

• Submitted for NSF Grant Proposal: “Who can function as an attachment figure?”, 2023

Contributions:

• Icon Design

• User Interface Design

• Manage software development team.