Designing Human-AI Conversations for Wellbeing

Conversational AI agents are here to stay. Two out of three Americans reported that they interacted with conversational AI like Alexa or Siri in the last month or so. From virtual assistants to customer service chatbots and robot receptionists, the number of these AI agents are rapidly growing, helping people navigate their lives. But as we move from human-human conversations to an increasing number of human-AI conversations, what are the new rules for engagement?

We know that in human-human conversation, people rely upon interaction rituals to establish common norms and values. This class will explore new rituals emerging in the space of human-AI conversation, when norms are few, boundaries are undefined, and the “other” conversationalist (the AI) is not yet well understood.

How can people navigate this new kind of relationship in reassuring, empowering, and delightful ways?

This class will explore this important question in the context of designing a conversational AI agent for wellbeing, in the specific area of stress reduction. After learning some background in the key elements of conversation design, students will choose from a series of conversational opportunities in the wellbeing space. Then through dialogue crafting and design, we will attempt to establish some new rituals emerging in the field of human-AI conversation (i.e. openings, misunderstandings, turn-taking).

We will tackle questions of trust, identity, delight, personality, and more. Students will explore the impact that a range of AI personae would have on the conversation experience. For example, how “human-like” should the AI persona appear to be in its language and speech, before it hits the uncanny valley or sets up unreasonable expectations in the AI’s abilities?

Building off past ritual design classes and cutting edge expertise in the AI dialogue space, students will run through quickly, lively, creative ritual design sprints. They will get the chance to prototype novel interactions in select contexts. They may also use photo and video storytelling tools to capture their design work.

This is a prototype driven studio, meant especially for students interested in rich interactions and bringing playfulness and meaning to experience design. We welcome students who are interested in how to create novel interactions, and who want to explore humorous, strange, magical, and curious ways to do so.

*What’s ritual design? Ritual design is a distinct approach to behavior design. It complements behavioral models and mechanics with its focus on beliefs, myths, values, and meaning-making in shifting human behavior.

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