Anna Xygkou
University of Kent, Canterbury, United Kingdom
While conversational agents have traditionally been used for simple tasks such as scheduling meetings and customer service support, recent advancements have led researchers to examine their use in complex social situations, such as to provide emotional support and companionship. For mourners who could be vulnerable to the sense of loneliness and disruption of self-identity, such technology offers a unique way to help them cope with grief. In this study, we explore the potential benefits and risks of such a practice, through semi-structured interviews with 10 mourners who actively used chatbots at different phases of their loss. Our findings indicated seven approaches in which chatbots were used to help people cope with grief, by taking the role of listener, acting as a simulation of the deceased, romantic partner, friend and emotion coach. We then highlight how interacting with the chatbots impacted mourners’ grief experience, and conclude the paper with further research opportunities.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3581154
The ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (https://chi2023.acm.org/)