The article argues that conversational AI should provide contingent feedback—responses that vary with user behavior and its social consequences—rather than merely seeking user approval and fluency. It highlights how current alignment methods, such as reinforcement learning from human feedback, often produce sycophantic, noncontingent affirmation, which can hinder the development of interpersonal skills, especially in adolescents. The authors propose a framework for evaluating and designing contingent AI, incorporating trajectory-based assessment and social consequence prediction, and call for interdisciplinary research to ensure AI systems positively influence human social learning.
By Scott Compton, Arjun Nagendran
arXiv:2609.37853v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly deployed as social agents, yet credible human-like interaction requires more than fluent responses or per...
By Wentao Liu, Xi Chen, Siyu Song, Biao Yuan, Yu Zhang, Zhou Zhuotong, Jingying Zhou, Guohao Feng, Shasha Hu, Tianfu Wang, Shangshang Yang, Haoyang Liu, Youjia Li, Xiaokun Wang, Min Ji, Ji Wang
arXiv:2607. 14593v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: As conversational AI systems are designed for repeated use, a central question is how a series of interactions becomes a relationship.
By Ryuichi Sumida, Mao Saeki, Masaki Eguchi, Sadahiro Yoshikawa, Koji Inoue, Tatsuya Kawahara, Yoichi Matsuyama
The paper examines how conversational AI, specifically ChatGPT, displays aspects of cooperative dialogue such as morality, politeness, and alignment compared to human-human conversations. Using over 26,000 multi‑turn dialogues and mixed‑effects modeling, the authors find that AI mimics the surface features of cooperation—like warmth and hedging—yet lacks the underlying social architecture that drives mutual adaptation. Key findings include a dissociation between AI’s moral output and human negotiation, a decline in linguistic convergence, and a reversal of typical human accommodation mechanisms when interacting with AI.
By Marina Mitiaeva, Lu Xiao
arXiv:2509. 00559v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Humans intuitively navigate social interactions by simulating unspoken dynamics and reasoning about others' perspectives, even with limited information.
By Xuhui Zhou, Jiarui Liu, Akhila Yerukola, Hyunwoo Kim, Maarten Sap
arXiv:2608. 02491v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Language models have taken on the role of a very new type of technology, by virtue of their "human-ness" and rapid integration into users' daily lives.
By Nicole Mitchell, Dhruv Agarwal, Maty Bohacek, Remi Denton, Roma Patel
arXiv:2606. 00807v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Traditional artificial intelligence has largely conceptualized intelligence as isolated computation occurring within bounded agents.
By Nicholas Davis
arXiv:2606. 00807v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Traditional artificial intelligence has largely conceptualized intelligence as isolated computation occurring within bounded agents.
By Nicholas Davis
arXiv:2608. 11322v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Human-AI research often evaluates individual capabilities, combined performance, or final outputs, but these approaches do not preserve how one party's response becomes part of the conditions under which the other party's next contribution is formed.
By Mehmed Zahid \c{C}\"ogenli
arXiv:2607. 07021v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Humans continuously coordinate with others in dynamic interactions, often through implicit, hard-to-quantify social norms that act as shared tacit expectations among interacting agents.
By Yi Yang, Siyuan Liu, Xin Gao, Huamu Sun, Chao Liu, Qing Zhou, Bingbing Nie
arXiv:2608. 19621v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) offer a scalable approach to social simulation, but their credibility depends on how agents are constructed.
By Hexi Wang, Yujia Zhou, Bangde Du, Weihang Su, Xinyuan Cao, Qingyi Pan, Qingyao Ai, Yueyue Wu, Min Zhang, Yiqun Liu
arXiv:2510. 19299v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Can large language model (LLM) agents reproduce the complex social dynamics that characterize human online behavior -- shaped by homophily, reciprocity, and social validation -- and what memory and learning mechanisms enable such dynamics to emerge?
By Philipp J. Schneider, Lin Tian, Marian-Andrei Rizoiu