![\"\"](\"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/AI-Chatbots.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
A parent asked a question in a private Facebook group in April 2024: Does anyone with a child who is both gifted and disabled have any experience with New York City public schools? The parent received a seemingly helpful answer that laid out some characteristics of a specific school, beginning with the context that \u201cI have a child who is also 2e,\u201d meaning twice exceptional.<\/p>\n
On a Facebook group for swapping unwanted items near Boston, a user looking for specific items received an offer of a \u201cgently used\u201d Canon camera and an \u201calmost-new portable air conditioning unit that I never ended up using.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both of these responses were lies. That\u00a0child does not exist<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0neither do the camera or air conditioner<\/a>. The answers came from an artificial intelligence chatbot<\/a>.<\/p>\n According to\u00a0a Meta help page<\/a>, Meta AI will respond to a post in a group if someone explicitly tags it or if someone \u201casks a question in a post and no one responds within an hour.\u201d The feature is not yet available in all regions or for all groups, according to the page. For groups where it is available, \u201cadmins can turn it off and back on at any time.\u201d<\/p>\n Meta AI has also been integrated into search features on Facebook and Instagram, and users\u00a0cannot turn it off<\/a>.<\/p>\n As a\u00a0researcher who studies<\/a>\u00a0both\u00a0online communities<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0AI ethics<\/a>, I find the idea of uninvited chatbots answering questions in Facebook groups to be dystopian for a number of reasons, starting with the fact that online communities are for people.<\/p>\n In 1993, Howard Rheingold published the book \u201cThe Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier<\/a>\u201d about\u00a0the WELL<\/a>, an early and\u00a0culturally significant online community<\/a>. The\u00a0first chapter<\/a>\u00a0opens with a parenting question: What to do about a \u201cblood-bloated thing sucking on our baby\u2019s scalp.\u201d<\/p>\n Rheingold received an answer from someone with firsthand knowledge of dealing with ticks and had resolved the problem before receiving a callback from the pediatrician\u2019s office. Of this experience, he wrote, \u201cWhat amazed me wasn\u2019t just the speed with which we obtained precisely the information we needed to know, right when we needed to know it. It was also the immense inner sense of security that comes with discovering that real people \u2013 most of them parents, some of them nurses, doctors, and midwives \u2013 are available, around the clock, if you need them.\u201d<\/p>\n This \u201creal people\u201d aspect of online communities continues to be critical today. Imagine why you might pose a question to a Facebook group rather than a search engine: because you want an answer from someone with real, lived experience or you want the human response that your question might elicit \u2013 sympathy, outrage, commiseration \u2013 or both.<\/p>\n Decades of research suggests that the human component of online communities is what makes them so valuable for both information-seeking and social support. For example, fathers who might otherwise feel uncomfortable asking for parenting advice have found a haven in\u00a0private online spaces just for dads<\/a>. LGBTQ+ youth\u00a0often join online communities<\/a>\u00a0to safely find critical resources while reducing feelings of isolation. Mental health support forums\u00a0provide young people with belonging and validation<\/a>\u00a0in addition to advice and social support.<\/p>\nHuman connections<\/strong><\/h4>\n