Beyond Alexa and Towards Her: Psychological Principles for Designing Voice AI Interactions
It’s early May 2024 and the internet is ablaze with rumors that OpenAI, the leader in LLMs (for laymen, AI chatbots), is preparing to showcase a major advancement.
On May 10th, the CEO of OpenAI Sam Altman shed (a bit) more light on what would be revealed through a post on X (formerly Twitter), dashing any hope that the next big version of ChatGPT (GPT-5) would be released. Instead, the focus of the announcement would be more on how we interact with pre-existing models.
A few days later, in a room filled with warm wooden undertones that looked more like a fancy coffee shop than a stage for a keynote, Mira Murati, the Chief Technology Officer of OpenAI, revealed two new important developments. The first was that the company would release a new version (GPT-4o) one step ahead of the existing one at that time (4), free for all non-premium users.2 This was significant, as most users who had tried LLMs had only experienced non-paid versions, which have vastly diminished capabilities compared to the frontier models.
The second announcement—the one we will be discussing here—is that users would soon be able to interact with ChatGPT, the company’s flagship product, via voice alone. Let’s dive into what made this innovation special and explore its psychological implications on users.
References
- OpenAI. (n.d.). Hello GPT-4.o. OpenAI. https://openai.com/index/hello-gpt-4o/
- King, C. (2024, May 14). iPad AI tutor demo: Apple shows off impressive AI-powered teaching tool. 9to5Mac. https://9to5mac.com/2024/05/14/ipad-ai-tutor-demo/
- Frontitude. (n.d.). What is conversational design. Frontitude.https://www.frontitude.com/glossary-posts/what-is-conversational-design
About the Author
Dan Pilat
Dan is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Decision Lab. He is a bestselling author of Intention - a book he wrote with Wiley on the mindful application of behavioral science in organizations. Dan has a background in organizational decision making, with a BComm in Decision & Information Systems from McGill University. He has worked on enterprise-level behavioral architecture at TD Securities and BMO Capital Markets, where he advised management on the implementation of systems processing billions of dollars per week. Driven by an appetite for the latest in technology, Dan created a course on business intelligence and lectured at McGill University, and has applied behavioral science to topics such as augmented and virtual reality.
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