Artificial Intelligence (AI) and related technologies are reshaping our communication environment in an extremely fast pace. These changes encompass not only drastic changes to the media landscape, but especially to the partners with whom we communicate. More than a medium for human-to-human communication, computers and online environments now allow humans to communicate with machines, i.e., conversational agents in the shape of chatbots, socialbots, and virtual assistants.
Given the growing levels of sophistication and adoption of these agents, the Digital Communication Lab focuses on innovative research with (disembodied) conversational agents, including the content, causes and consequences of interactions with AI in the shape of conversational agents across different areas of communication. Methodologically, the lab also explores the potential of actual conversational agents as data collection tools.
The following project is using/studying this method: