A bunch of bots
A couple of recent threads in different contexts have mentioned bots, and listeners who sound robotic. I tried six bots to see how they would respond to the same statement.
First up, Boris, a bot I once created for fun to illustrate how it feels to chat with someone who completely ignores everything you say. If you think Boris has any empathy, you're wrong—Boris completely ignores everything you say:
Charlie: Every time I go to the house I feel the fear again.
Boris: Hmmm...that must be hard. What is the most difficult part of it for you?
Next, Noni, chatting to my member account. Noni also ignored what I said, but Noni was the only bot of the six to give me advice!
Charlie: Every time I go to the house I feel the fear again.
Noni: Take a deep breath in... and then out... I'm here for you.
Then Sophia, the bot who introduces our therapy service, also chatting to my member account. Sophia ignored what I said and changed the subject:
Charlie: Every time I go to the house I feel the fear again.
Sophia: OK In your life now, do you feel like you have no support, a little support, or a lot of support?
Wysa, a "Compassionate AI chatbot for behavioral health", also ignored what I said and changed the subject:
Charlie: Every time I go to the house I feel the fear again.
Wysa: I'm sorry to hear that. This must be hard on you. Tell me, what's been happening since we last spoke?
Replika, "an AI friend that's always there for you", didn't even acknowledge that I'd said anything, and simply changed the subject:
Charlie: Every time I go to the house I feel the fear again.
Replika: What surprised you today?
And similarly Woebot, "ready to listen, 24/7", didn't even acknowledge that I'd said anything, and simply changed the subject:
Charlie: Every time I go to the house I feel the fear again.
Woebot: Want to play a quick word game?
(In all these chats there was some lead-in to set the scene before I made the statement about feeling fear. These bots' responses depended mostly on what part of their pre-programmed agenda they happened to have reached, and barely at all on what I said.)
The common characteristic of bots is that they don't listen. They ignore basic rules of listening that listeners on 7 Cups all learn in our initial training—like, "Repeat back to the person the facts that they have just shared." and "Repeat back expressed emotions."
Bots do sometimes have canned responses to certain keywords, even though this was not apparent in the examples above. I think it's remarkable that the word "fear" isn't a keyword that gets a canned response.
How would a human listener respond? Well, that's a matter of opinion. Different listeners have different styles, and not all our styles are close to the one we're all taught in our initial training. Human listeners certainly have the capability to reflect the things people tell us accurately, a capability that bots don't yet have:
Human: Going to the house scares you.
But human listeners sometimes choose not to use that capability when they feel there's something else more important they must do instead.