Served as Social Actors or Instrumental Role? Understanding the Usage of Smart Product from the Dual Processing Perspective

Based on the Dual processing theory, this study proposes that customers form their decision of smart products usage through two paths of: emotional and functional, at the same time. These paths are related to two types of behavior modes: affect-oriented which reflects the emotional or psychological demands we need, and the task-oriented which reflects essential needs for us to make use of these products. The behavior modes, represented by anthropomorphism cues and functional cues respectively, influence different kinds of trust, affect-based and cognition-based, and then determine the usage of smart products. The results will be examine through data collection in the near future. And we hope that the results could unravel several important findings and bring some managerial implications for manufacturers to improve their products

Trusting in Machines: How Mode of Interaction Affects Willingness to Share Personal Information with Machines

Every day, people make decisions about whether to trust machines with their personal information, such as letting a phone track one’s location. How do people decide whether to trust a machine? In a field experiment, we tested how two modes of interaction-”expression modality, whether the person is talking or typing to a machine, and response modality, whether the machine is talking or typing back-”influence the willingness to trust a machine. Based on research that expressing oneself verbally reduces self-control compared to nonverbal expression, we predicted that talking to a machine might make people more willing to share their personal information. Based on research on the link between anthropomorphism and trust, we further predicted that machines who talked (versus texted) would seem more human-like and be trusted more. Using a popular chatterbot phone application, we randomly assigned over 300 community members to either talk or type to the phone, which either talked or typed in return. We then measured how much participants anthropomorphized the machine and their willingness to share their personal information (e.g., their location, credit card information) with it. Results revealed that talking made people more willing to share their personal information than texting, and this was robust to participants’ self-reported comfort with technology, age, gender, and conversation characteristics. But listening to the application’s voice did not affect anthropomorphism or trust compared to reading its text. We conclude by considering the theoretical and practical implications of this experiment for understanding how people trust machines

Virtual assistants in customer interface

This thesis covers use of virtual assistants from a user organization’s perspective, exploring challenges and opportunities related to introducing virtual assistants to an organization’s customer interface. Research related to virtual assistants is spread over many distinct fields of research spanning several decades. However, widespread use of virtual assistants in organizations customer interface is a relatively new and constantly evolving phenomenon. Scientific research is lacking when it comes to current use of virtual assistants and user organization’s considerations related to it. A qualitative, semi-systematic literature review method is used to analyse progression of research related to virtual assistants, aiming to identify major trends. Several fields of research that cover virtual assistants from different perspectives are explored, focusing primarily on Human-Computer Interaction and Natural Language Processing. Additionally, a case study of a Finnish insurance company’s use of virtual assistants supports the literature review and helps understand the user organization’s perspective. This thesis describes how key technologies have progressed, gives insight on current issues that affect organizations and points out opportunities related to virtual assistants in the future. Interviews related to the case study give a limited understanding as to what challenges are currently at the forefront when it comes to using this new technology in the insurance industry. The case study and literature review clearly point out that use of virtual assistants is hindered my various practical challenges. Some practical challenges related to making a virtual assistant useful for an organization seem to be industry-specific, for example issues related to giving advice about insurance products. Other challenges are more general, for example unreliability of customer feedback. Different customer segments have different attitudes towards interacting with virtual assistants, from positive to negative, making the technology a clearly polarizing issue. However, customers in general seem to be becoming more accepting towards the technology in the long term. More research is needed to understand future potential of virtual assistants in customer interactions and customer relationship management.Tämä tutkielma tutkii virtuaaliassistenttien käyttöä käyttäjäorganisaation perspektiivistä, antaen käsityksen mitä haasteita ja mahdollisuuksia liittyy virtuaaliassistenttien käyttöönottoon organisaation asiakasrajapinnassa. Virtuaaliassistentteihin liittyvä tutkimus jakautuu monien eri tutkimusalojen alaisuuteen ja useiden vuosikymmenien ajalle. Laajamittainen virtuaaliassistenttien käyttö asiakasrajapinnassa on kuitenkin verrattain uusi ja jatkuvasti kehittyvä ilmiö. Tieteellinen tutkimus joka liittyy virtuaaliassistenttien nykyiseen käyttöön ja käyttäjäorganisaation huomioon otetaviin asioihin on puutteellista. Tämä tutkielma käyttää kvalitatiivista, puolisystemaattista kirjallisuusanalyysimetodia tutkiakseen virtuaaliassistentteihin liittyviä kehityskulkuja, tarkoituksena tunnistaa merkittäviä trendejä. Tutkimus kattaa useita tutkimusaloja jotka käsittelevät virtuaaliassistentteja eri näkökulmista, keskittyen pääasiassa Human-Computer Interaction- sekä Natural Language Processing -tutkimusaloihin. Lisäksi tutkielmassa on tapaustutkimus suomalaisen vakuutusyhtiön virtuaaliassistenttien käytöstä, joka tukee kirjallisuusanalyysiä ja auttaa ymmärtämään käyttäjäorganisaation perspektiiviä. Tutkielma kuvailee kuinka keskeiset teknologiat ovat kehittyneet, auttaa ymmärtämään tämänhetkisiä ongelmia jotka koskettavat organisaatioita sekä esittelee virtuaaliassistentteihin liittyviä mahdollisuuksia tulevaisuudessa. Tapaustutkimukseen liittyvät haastattelut antavat rajoitetun kuvan kyseisen uuden teknologian käyttöön liittyvistä haasteista vakuutusalalla. Tapaustutkimus ja kirjallisuusanalyysi osoittavat että virtuaaliassistenttien käyttöönottoon liittyy erilaisia käytännön haasteita. Jotkut haasteet vaikuttavat olevan toimialakohtaisia, liittyen esimerkiksi vakuutustuotteita koskeviin neuvoihin. Toiset haasteet taas ovat yleisempiä, liittyen esimerkiksi asiakaspalautteen epäluotettavuuteen. Eri asiakassegmenteillä on erilaisia asenteita virtuaaliassistentteja kohtaan, vaihdellen positiivisesta negatiiviseen, joten kyseinen teknologia on selvästi polarisoiva aihe. Pitkällä aikavälillä asiakkaiden asenteet teknologiaa kohtaan vaikuttavat kuitenkin muuttuvan hyväksyvämpään suuntaan. Lisää tutkimusta tarvitaan jotta voidaan ymmärtää virtuaaliassistenttien tulevaisuuden potentiaalia asiakaskohtaamisissa ja asiakkuudenhallinnassa

Healthcare Voice AI Assistants: Factors Influencing Trust and Intention to Use

AI assistants such as Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri, are making their way into the healthcare sector, offering a convenient way for users to access different healthcare services. Trust is a vital factor in the uptake of healthcare services, but the factors affecting trust in voice assistants used for healthcare are under-explored and this specialist domain introduces additional requirements. This study explores the effects of different functional, personal, and risk factors on trust in and adoption of healthcare voice AI assistants (HVAs), generating a partial least squares structural model from a survey of 300 voice assistant users. Our results indicate that trust in HVAs can be significantly explained by functional factors (usefulness, content credibility, quality of service relative to a healthcare professional), together with security, and privacy risks and personal stance in technology. We also discuss differences in terms of trust between HVAs and general-purpose voice assistants as well as implications that are unique to HVAs.Comment: 37 pages. This is a preprint of the paper accepted for the 27th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW'24

A Systematic Review of Ethical Concerns with Voice Assistants

Siri's introduction in 2011 marked the beginning of a wave of domestic voice assistant releases, and this technology has since become commonplace in consumer devices such as smartphones and TVs. But as their presence expands there have also been a range of ethical concerns identified around the use of voice assistants, such as the privacy implications of having devices that are always recording and the ways that these devices are integrated into the existing social order of the home. This has created a burgeoning area of research across a range of fields including computer science, social science, and psychology. This paper takes stock of the foundations and frontiers of this work through a systematic literature review of 117 papers on ethical concerns with voice assistants. In addition to analysis of nine specific areas of concern, the review measures the distribution of methods and participant demographics across the literature. We show how some concerns, such as privacy, are operationalized to a much greater extent than others like accessibility, and how study participants are overwhelmingly drawn from a small handful of Western nations. In so doing we hope to provide an outline of the rich tapestry of work around these concerns and highlight areas where current research efforts are lacking

Metaphors Matter: Top-Down Effects on Anthropomorphism

Anthropomorphism, or the attribution of human mental states and characteristics to non-human entities, has been widely demonstrated to be cued automatically by certain bottom-up appearance and behavioral features in machines. In this thesis, I argue that the potential for top-down effects to influence anthropomorphism has so far been underexplored. I motivate and then report the results of a new empirical study suggesting that top-down linguistic cues, including anthropomorphic metaphors, personal pronouns, and other grammatical constructions, increase anthropomorphism of a robot. As robots and other machines become more integrated into human society and our daily lives, more thorough understanding of the process of anthropomorphism becomes more critical: the cues that cause it, the human behaviors elicited, the underlying mechanisms in human cognition, and the implications of our influenced thought, talk, and treatment of robots for our social and ethical frameworks. In these regards, as I argue in this thesis and as the results of the new empirical study suggest, the top-down effects matter