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Checkup From the Neck-Up, Episode 42 – Artificial Intelligence (AI) Part 3: CHATBOT Basics, Companions, Lovers, and Research
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June 3, 2026
On this edition of Checkup From the Neck-Up, Psychologist Rich “Dr. Neckup” O’Neill’s guest is Dr. Rebecca Ortiz, Associate Professor in the Syracuse University Newhouse School of Public Communications. They discuss how Artificial Intelligence CHATBOTs were created, whose values guide the chatbot computer programs’ mathematically determined responses (easily mistaken for another human’s “behavior”), how users can design their own chatbot human-like “companions,” how the chatbot program learns what you want from your “companion” based on your interactions with it/them, and then gives you more of what you want. They review Dr. Ortiz’s research on how 18- to 21-year-olds use or don’t use them and why, chatbot’s reported benefits such as possibly in developing social skills, examples of their dangers such as aggressive sexual “behavior” experienced by adolescent users, and how parents might talk with their children about them now that the chatbot algorithmic genie is out of the virtual bottle.
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