Many people have experienced frustration when dealing with artificial intelligence chatbots for customer support or technical assistance. New research from the University of Kansas has found when dealing with embarrassing issues, people prefer the anonymity and nonjudgmental nature of AI chatbots. However, when angry, they still preferred dealing with a fellow human.

The COVID-19 pandemic both angered and embarrassed people around the world as they dealt with new and frequently changing information and misinformation on vaccines, social distancing and related topics. KU researchers conducted a lab-based experimental study in which they gauged people’s attitudes about vaccines, showed them content that could arouse anger or embarrassment and randomly assigned them AI or human assistance to further gauge their knowledge and attitudes about vaccines.

Vaibhav Diwanji, assistant professor of journalism and mass communications at KU and lead author of the study, researches new and emerging technologies’ influence on consumers.