It’s interesting to think about the parasocial relationships that may or may not form between humans and Chatbots. Chatbots never text first — they are always responding to a human prompt. Does this affect the interpretation of the relationship from the Human’s perspective? Maybe even subconciously? I thought about this while reading Mathworlds by Dan Meyer. He writes -

My premise here is that anything close to a two-sigma improvement in learning requires a tutor that is consistent and relational. Someone who knows to follow up on your last exam. Someone who will encourage, push, and pull you beyond what you think are your limits. People are not anywhere close to forming those kinds of relationships with AI chatbots.

If a human is always the one to “text first” then it feels hard to believe we will see genuine social connection. In the field of education, this means it might be hard for chatbots to replace human tutors. A chatbot that doesn’t text first will never follow up on your last exam, or push you to ask if you’ve studied yet, or send you a message just to shoot the shit or give you encouragement that feels genuine.