ChatGPT-4o is just one of a wave of new conversational A.I., including the rollout of Meta AI last month. “By the end of the decade, I think lots of people will talk to A.I.s frequently throughout the day,” Mark Zuckerberg predicted upon its release. Zuckerberg’s claim (self-aggrandizing though it may be) echoes much of the research on chatbots. A 2022 study published in Computers in Human Behavior claims that these conversational A.I. technologies “can fill some of the same needs as human acquaintances” and may “soon provide personalized social support to a variety of users.”
As large language models improve, Zuckerberg and others suggest, humans will increasingly enjoy interacting with them—a shift that will perhaps even assuage the “loneliness epidemic” identified by U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy. According to this line of thinking, technical innovation is the only thing standing in the way of consistent, fulfilling human–A.I. interaction.
However, the longer history of human communication suggests another factor: the expectations we bring to those interactions, shaped by more than 100 years of conversations with and through machines. Ever since the Victorian telegraph created real-time conversations at a distance, humans have been trying to envision the person who generated the words that they’re reading. Those imaginings have created criteria for authenticity that we bring to our interactions with chatbots today—and that transcend LLM accuracy. I don’t know if chatbot conversations will ever satisfy human loneliness, but understanding their potential requires seeing how that historical context has shaped our very human interpretations of technology.
The spread of telegraph lines during the mid-19th century presented a new possibility: Two people could have a synchronous conversation from hundreds or even thousands of miles apart. They might already know each other and enjoy this quicker form of communication, or they might be total strangers. It was the latter possibility that took hold of the public imagination.
Telegraph operators were often women, and this novel form of communication raised the specter of what we now call catfishing: luring someone into a relationship by misrepresenting oneself. The telegraph ushered in innovative opportunities for women’s independence and, with that, new metrics—and a new urgency—for differentiating the real from the fake.