Intelligent digital beings as children’s imaginary social companions

Being human brings a gift for imaginative thought, an ability that can be used to transform the very world in which we live. That gift has now brought us to a new reality in which we are rapidly changing life as we have known it. What is alive? What is not? Artificial intelligence makes answers to those questions increasingly unclear, especially for young children. A key facet of being a person involves forming close emotional ties to others, known as attachments (Bowlby, 1969). Through early interactions with emotionally close others, children come to know themselves and the world in which they live, ideally as a safe place with trusted adults who will care for them and offer a safe haven in times of need (Bowlby, 1969). Do children also care about non-human agents? If so, how does that mirror the ways children feel about the people in their lives? Do they trust intelligent digital beings more when they feel emotionally close to them, when they attribute life to them? Parasocial relationships, the emotionally tinged feelings that viewers have for favorite media personae (Bond & Calvert, 2014), have been conceptualized as close relationships, as a kind of imaginary friend for young children that can be used to explain the similarities between face-to-face and mediated relationships (Calvert, 2017). Being a person also involves verbal and nonverbal communication with others. Conversation is an important cultural tool that enables social interactions. Social contingency is a linchpin of those interactions (Rosenberry, Hirsh-Pasek, & Golinkoff, 2014). We take turns in our conversations: I talk, then you talk, and so on. We make comments and ask questions, and someone (ideally) replies. Through these verbal exchanges, we come to know ourselves and others, to learn about our worlds. In media experiences, verbal exchanges between children and characters are known as parasocial interactions (Lauricella, Gola, & Calvert, 2011). That children talk to characters as if they can hear them reflects the role that imagination plays in mediated experiences: characters don’t really know what children are saying even though children and characters act as if they are in a two-way conversation (Calvert, 2017). Artificial intelligence, such as conversational agents like Google home, Alexa, and Siri, can now simulate social contingency much more realistically than television experiences can, serving children as social partners that can answer their questions through parasocial interactions. Do children believe what intelligent agents say? Do they trust them?