In Conversations with Humans and Machines

 Who doesn’t love a good conversation? Conversation is a natural human experience which has probably evolved the most with technology. From the good old days of people conversing face-to-face or via handwritten letters to the modern days of conversing via phone, email, text, video call, and soon to be a new world of metaverse.

Why do we love to talk? A good conversation makes us feel good about ourselves. Feeling good has always been a strong motivation for us to do things, like using technology to have more good conversations. As technology continues to take a more diverse role in our lives, our conversations ‘’via technology’ develops into ‘with technology’, and the popularity of Siri and Alexa are good examples. Soon if not already, they will no longer just assist humans but also become the human’s social companion. Therefore, it’s in our interest to improve our conversational skills with humans, but also with machines. The question is how? 

 Having a conversation is a complex process which consists of multiple topics and decision points. It’s more just picking the right words. Understanding of the contextual information and 10 layers of a language are very important but it is just one part of a greater whole. If conversation is easy for humans to control, then none of us would ever get into an argument again. If we want machines to be able to communicate with us naturally, then it needs to understand how we think – which is emotionally and irrational most of the time. 

 In the context of businesses, we are having conversations with our customers, both verbal and non-verbal all the time. The brand is communicating values to the customers; the customer service team is having conversations about customer issues; customers in the community are having conversations with other customers. Especially, in the instance of voice technology, chatbots and machine learning algorithms are used to enable these conversations, it is crucial to understand “Why we do the things we do?” and “Why we say the things we say?”. Is it so we can figure out how to design naturally good conversations? 

Humans Rely on Their Intuition and Emotions 

 Nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman explained in his book “Thinking Fast and Slow”, that we use two systems to think: System 1 (Fast) and System 2 (Slow). System 1 happens automatically and intuitively, driven by emotions and experience; System 2 makes choices and decides what to think about and what to do. 

In most conversations, we are using System 1 more than System 2. The micro decisions we make during a typical conversation are in fact primarily driven by our emotions, working memory (short-term), experiences, gut instinct, and biases. It means that having a bad day in work can put you in a bad mood. The next thing you know, the conversation you have with your spouse is going south, and he/she is also becoming emotional. System 1 works automatically, that’s why we make conversational mistakes and have afterthoughts like “Why did I say that?”. 

Psychologists have been debating for centuries about whether it is reason or emotion that rules the human psyche. An interesting metaphor introduced by Haidt: the elephant and the rider is a good way to show just how divided our mind is.  When a rider is riding an elephant, you may think the rider (reasoning mind) is in control, but the outcome of the ride is really up to the much more powerful elephant (our unconscious intuitions). Our reasoning mind is really just along for the ride. When ‘rider’ and ‘elephant’ have a disagreement, who do you think will win?

 Let’s look at a few examples of just how our mind works on its own agenda when someone simply asks you a question. 

The Power of Questions

Many conversations start with a question like “How are you?”. Even with machines, we ask questions to seek answers we don’t know like “Alexa, how many movies has Brad Pitt been in?”

The difference between asking a human a question vs a machine is that the human’s answer is more intuitive, it automatically uses system 1 thinking which is largely reliant on our short-term memory and limited experience. Our brain constantly looks for mental short cuts, as Daniel Kahneman put it: “In the economy of actions, effort is a cost. Laziness is built deep into our nature”.

1.     We like to answer the easier question. 

Q1: What is 228 multiply by 135? 

Q2: How do you feel about doing maths?

 If I ask you these two questions, you will find the Q2 is much easier to answer. Q1 requires mental efforts, whereas Q2 is about our intuitive feeling. 

How to apply this?

·      Ask humans more intuitive questions.

·      Build more intuitive answers into machines.

Maybe someday, Alexa will tell you how she feels about working for free.

2.     Heuristic questions induce emotions; emotions can change our answers. 

Q1: How much would you contribute to save an endangered species?

Q2: How do feel when thinking of the dying dolphins?

If I use the above questions to ask you for a contribution to a wildlife charity, does Question 2 change how you feel about making donations? Q2 is what’s called a heuristic question which is more effective when it comes to connecting with people and their emotions. 

How to apply this?

·      Ask questions which invoke a stronger feeling (happy or sad). 

3.              The Power of Mood Altering 

Q1: How many dates did you have recently? 

Q2: How happy are you?

 If I ask you these 2 questions above, it’s likely that Q1 will trigger your thoughts of not having any dates recently, which then causes negative emotions that make you feel less happy as a result. 

However, if I reverse the questions, you are likely to feel happier.

Q2: How happy are you? 

Q1: How many dates did you have recently

There, I just altered your happiness without changing a single word. 

How to apply this?

·      Be aware of questions that might have a framing/priming effect which can skew the answers.  

Hidden Desires 

Businesses use questions to understand their consumers. Asking a logical question or an intuitive question will give you different outcomes. Questions about a purchase decision which seem to be rational, and should be based on needs, price and quality etc, can easily turn out to be emotional. As Sigmund Freud claimed: “People are not in charge, their desires are.”

Consumers are constantly asking questions to help them make a decision. For example, a question like the one below can drive different outcomes for businesses. 

 Q: How many people are using this? 

A business can say:

 A: Not many. 

or

B: A lot of people.

 The effect these answers have will depend on the (hidden) desires of the consumers.

A: Not many. 

Ø  Consumers could be seeking exclusivity, if many people are not using it, it must be good. 

B: A lot of people.

Ø  Consumers could be seeking social proof, if more people are using it, it must be good.

How to apply this?

·      The consumers true desire maybe the opposite of what you think.

Cognitive Ease

 As you have seen above, what you ask and how you ask it in a conversation can alter one’s mood. Psychological experiments have shown that mood has a powerful effect on our intuitive performance (i.e. guessing). Putting people in a good mood (cognitive ease) before the test by having them think happy thoughts, can lead to more than double the accuracy. 

How to apply this?

·      A challenge for technology business will be, how can you use your technology to put people into a better mood. A better mood means a happier customer and we all know that a happy customer buys more. 

Conclusion

If conversations are powerful, then technology is going to make it super powerful with its unique ability to scale. A one-to-one conversation will become one-to-hundreds, thousands and even millions. It’s in everyone’s interest that whenever we have a conversation with humans or machines, we try it make it a good one. Happiness is the great motivations for action. 

Next

In the next blog, we will look at why we love to talk about ourselves in a conversation. 

Would you believe me if I say you can make someone fall in love with you in less than 36 question by just talking about yourself? 

 This publication from Jing Reilly looks at the power of question framing and their impact on our mood . Area22 are changing how consumers are presented with these options - by including them in the centre of the #conversation ! #conversationalcommerce #conversationalai #psychology #cyberpsychology