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This paper explores the effect of chatbot empathy and identity disclosure on willingness to donate (WTD) to a fundraising project and the psychological mechanism in the relationship. In a 3 (information-only vs. cognitive empathy vs. affective empathy) × 2 (chatbot vs. human identity) experiment, 496 US adults had a conversation about a fundraising event with one of six artificial intelligence-powered chatbots. The results revealed that neither chatbot empathy nor identity disclosure has a significant effect on WTD, rejecting the hypotheses. However, the data supported a significant interaction effect between chatbot empathy and identity disclosure on WTD. Moreover, the results suggested that the interaction effect between chatbot empathy and identity disclosure on WTD would be mediated through human likeness and social presence. This study suggests how empathy and human identity of chatbots should be applied with care to avoid the uncanny valley effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a study about communicability of conversational interfaces (namely chatbots) under a semiotic perspective. A chatbot is a software system that allows you to simulate real conversations between devices and users by means of a conversational interface (CI). After introducing the chatbot concept, focusing on its advantages and issues, we will present two domains of use in which chatbot interfaces can be effective: healthcare and smart home. For carrying out simple tasks such as finding information or triggering operations, users need an easy-to-use and to an easy-to-learn system to communicate with. To face this, conversational interfaces represent the latest trend in the field of digital design. For studying the communicability aspects of a CI, we carried out a user test to compare traditional and chatbot interfaces. This paper aims at evaluating the benefits at the communicability level of a chatbot in comparison to traditional GUI for incrementing the effectiveness and efficacy of communication between users and the system specifically for users with poor attitude in using technologies. In details, we evaluated the communicability of two prototypes that can be used to solve simple tasks in order to favour user inclusion, including everyone with very little exposure to technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals tend to hold back their ideas because they feel concerned about being evaluated. This leads to the untapped creative potential for organisations that depend on the creative abilities and ideas of their employees, as idea evaluation is essential for further developing and assessing creative ideas that inhibit the potential to turn into innovative products or services. In my research, I propose the use of AI-based computer systems for idea evaluation to address evaluation apprehension. With the help of an experiment (n = 228), I test whether individuals feel concerned about evaluation when a computer evaluates their idea. The results show that people do not feel evaluation apprehension when they present their idea to an AI-based system, but in contrast, feel concerned when they present their idea to a human. These findings contribute to the theory of evaluation apprehension but also to theories of human-computer collaboration and hold potential for companies to increase their creative outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contrary to the traditional concept of artificial intelligence, explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) aims to provide explanations for the prediction results and make users perceive the system as being reliable. However, despite its importance, only a few studies have investigated how the explanations of an XAI system should be designed. This study investigates how people attribute the perceived ability of XAI systems based on perceived attributional qualities and how the power status of the XAI and anthropomorphism affect the attribution process. In a laboratory experiment, participants (N = 500) read a scenarios of using an XAI system with either lower or higher power status and reported their perceptions of the system. Results indicated that an XAI system with a higher power status caused users to perceive the outputs of the XAI system to be more controllable by intention, and higher perceived stability and uncontrollability resulted in greater confidence in the system's ability. The effect of perceived controllability on perceived ability was moderated by the extent to which participants anthropomorphised the system. Several design implications for XAI systems are suggested based on our findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]