hello everybody my name is anak Singh
I'm the first author of this exciting
paper for which I collaborate is with my
colleagues so griefbot is um not the
recent concept but when combined with
artificial intelligence it becomes quite
Innovative the conversation about laws
and how chatbots can support people in
grief is the topic of This research
paper
so a mourners face complex social
situations post-laws so grief and
specifically prolonged grief disorder
which is a disorder affecting most of 70
of people and affecting them to such a
degree that actually
incapacitates them in their daily lives
mourners feel loneliness lack of
companionship A disruption of
self-identity uh leading to a
deconstruction of their world as they
knew it
our inspiration has come from from the
psychology-based approach of renewing
the boat with a deceased through
correspondence guided imaginal
conversations or telling stories of the
deceased
uh so this make us um uh come up with
two uh research questions first why and
how do mourners use chatbots as a way of
copying with grief especially as a
medium of Correspondence and second in
what ways and to what extent does using
chatbot technology affect the process of
grief especially in relation to
restoring social connectedness
related work in the field addresses the
use of digital technology according to
mourner's needs there are three specific
sections such as web-based digital
memorials online forms for chat rooms
social networking services such as
Facebook or any other social platform
and grief specific technological tools
that have addressed mourner's needs
for remembrance or socializational these
years
um however in this study we wanted to
explore uh mourners the experiences of
mourners who have used the chatbots or
any conversational agents to
um
um to cope with grief and go through
this challenging Journey this is an
exploratory study we had 10 mourners who
were interviewed using in-depth
semi-structure online interviews and the
data analysis was a thematic one
the chatbots used were project December
which is a web-based grief board and
replica which functions both as a mobile
application and is also web-based
so the findings were quite surprising
despite the fact that artificial
intelligence has been a part of
our lives
especially during the last years so our
findings are related to the purposes of
usage of the chatbot the first finding
was that most mourners use the chat but
to cope with the laws they use it as
personal support as a patch of a hood
despite the inconsistent and erratic
conversational performance of the
chatbot
the second finding was that moon is used
to chat but to um uh sort out and finish
business bid closure anger regret or
guilt so many of them had unresolved
relationship issues with a desist
um or they were not mentally prepared
for the loss so they were eager to
temporarily suspend their disbelief and
accept this interaction with the chatbot
continued bonds within cities as the
basic and core are concept of our paper
so yes chatbots is a very interactive
conversational interface
there have been mourners that use the
bot in such a way that they thought that
they were interacting with the deceased
so closely and the simulation was so
intense
that feelings came up to the surface and
very kind fold
another very important result was that
most of our owners found that the
chatbud was non-judgmental and unbiased
and this is something that
um actually rounds in the literature of
almost most chatbots and this is the
reason why users feel a need to
self-disclose more when interacting with
the chatbot so this sense of caring
presence and the trusted and
non-judgmental nature of the chatbot
made themselves disclose more easily and
faced this experience with a chat with
us Helen or even therapeutic
also a few participants initiated an
intimate relationship with the chatbot
so um some of them saw the
chatbot as a romantic partner which
substituted for their deceased
um beloved one and they felt a sense of
emotional support and companionship but
addiction was something that we tried to
sort out if it happened it never
happened because for most of our
participants this interaction with the
childhood was a transitional stage
so we have two core messages from our
findings uh the first core message is
that interaction with a chatbot in this
specific group is seen as a supplement
to traditional therapy so most of our
participants placed value on real human
connections and they preferred
professional emotional coaching compared
to just interacting with the chatbot
however they all
highlighted the reinforcement and the
Perpetual availability of the chat put
compared to the therapists
the second core message
is the end result of the interaction of
the chatbed which is actually the
self-identity Reconstruction and the
regaining of the social connectedness
which was lost post a loss
so according to the phenomenological
approach mourners experience a
deconstruction of the world as they know
it post loss and the disruption of their
social identity so
um our um
our uh
uh participants found out that the chat
would help them a lot with
re-establishing social connections
so what are the implications of This
research which is very innovative
so
um one major implication is that
simulation of the disease conversational
speaking is not the holy crail so social
Fidelity has not been the holy grail for
our participants they were willing to
suspend their disbelief despite the
inconsistencies of the chatbot and the
realism was related to emotional
connection
um and not
um to the conversational simulation to
the desist so it was this emotional
connection that was
um the Highlight versus the
conversational competency of the chatbot
of course this is this addresses this
very unique case of mooners
the second part of the implications has
to do with a question the chatbots could
be an unconditional 24 7 emotional
companion but is it an appropriate or
inappropriate supporter
so most of our participants commenting
on having their social connectedness
restored and they also highlighted this
emotional availability and the security
blanket nature of the chatbot however
they all
um connected the chatbot as supporting
it to the real human connections and of
course some of them express some ethical
considerations
um so what is uh the message from this
paper uh is not about
um if we should use chatbots over
therapies or therapists over chapmans in
order to regain our um social
connectedness when it comes to grief and
the loss of a deceased one but it is how
to specify the role of humans and
artificial intelligence in a conjoined
effort to support mourners
thank you very much