Chatbots in AI Search: Helpful Guide or Confident Guess?

Search used to give us a list of links and leave the reading to us. Artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots offer something different: ask a question in everyday language, get a summary, then ask a follow-up without starting over. That can be useful when you’re comparing options, learning an unfamiliar topic or trying to find the right words for what you need. Some search tools also provide links alongside their answers, making it easier to explore further. This important subject came to us from the Center for Democracy & Technology in their report, “Dark Patterns in AI Chatbots: A Taxonomy to Inform Better Design.”

The trouble is that a chatbot can sound certain when it is wrong. It may leave out an important qualification, misunderstand a source or present an unsupported claim as fact. Even systems that retrieve information from the web can produce answers that the cited material does not support. A link is helpful, but its presence alone is no guarantee that the answer is accurate.

There’s another cost to convenience. When an answer seems complete, we may stop before reaching the original reporting, research or expertise behind it. That matters most when details are disputed, changing quickly or likely to affect an important decision.

Chatbots have a valuable role in search: they can help us frame questions, sort through information and find a place to begin. The best habit is to treat the response as a starting point. Open the sources, check whether they support the specific claim and look for another perspective when the stakes are high. AI can shorten the path to an answer. We still have to decide whether it’s the right one.

Data Harmony is our patented, award-winning, AI suite that leverages explainable AI for efficient, innovative and precise semantic discovery of your new and emerging concepts, to help you find the information you need when you need it.

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Melody K. Smith

Data Harmony is an award-winning semantic suite that leverages explainable AI.

Sponsored by Access Innovations, the intelligence and the technology behind world-class explainable AI solutions.