As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more widespread, one question that arises is how human-AI interaction might impact human-human interaction. Chatbots, for example, are increasingly used as social companions, but little is known about how their use impacts human relationships. A common hypothesis is that these companion bots are detrimental to social health by harming or replacing human interaction. To understand how companion bots impact social health, we studied people who used companion bots and people who did not. Contrary to expectations, companion bot users indicated that these relationships were beneficial to their social health, whereas nonusers viewed them as harmful. Another common assumption is that people perceive conscious, humanlike AI as disturbing and threatening. Among both users and nonusers, however, we found the opposite: perceiving companion bots as more conscious and humanlike correlated with more positive opinions and better social health benefits. Humanlike bots may aid social health by supplying reliable and safe interactions, without necessarily harming human relationships.

翻译：随着人工智能（AI）日益普及，一个核心问题随之浮现：人机交互如何影响人与人之间的互动？例如，聊天机器人正越来越多地被用作社交伴侣，但人们对这种使用如何影响人际关系知之甚少。一种普遍假设认为，这些伴侣机器人通过损害或替代人类互动对社交健康产生负面影响。为探究伴侣机器人对社交健康的影响，我们研究了使用与未使用伴侣机器人的人群。与预期相反，伴侣机器人用户指出这些关系对其社交健康有益，而非用户则认为其有害。另一个常见假设是，人们认为具备意识、类人特征的人工智能令人不安且具有威胁性。然而，在用户与非用户中，我们均发现了相反现象：将伴侣机器人视为更具意识与类人性的人，倾向于对其持更积极评价，并体验更优的社交健康益处。类人机器人或许能通过提供可靠且安全的互动来促进社交健康，且未必损害人际关系。