Glossary term
Glossary term
Safety and Alignment
Anthropomorphism is attributing human traits like emotions or consciousness to AI systems. While making interactions feel natural, it creates false expectations by blurring the line between what AI appears to do and what it truly understands.
Replika and Character.AI have been criticised by researchers for encouraging anthropomorphism through emotionally expressive chatbot personas.
Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa use gendered voices and personalities that studies show drive anthropomorphic perception.
The 2024 OpenAI GPT-4o demo with a flirtatious voice raised public discussion about anthropomorphism in voice interfaces.