Bowling with ChatGPT: On the Evolving User Interactions with Conversational AI Systems
Sai Keerthana Karnam, Abhisek Dash, Krishna P. Gummadi, Animesh Mukherjee, Ingmar Weber, Savvas Zannettou

TL;DR
This study analyzes a large dataset of ChatGPT interactions to reveal how user purposes, social framing, and steering behaviors have evolved, indicating a shift from functional tools to social partners in human-AI interactions.
Contribution
It provides a comprehensive analysis of evolving user interaction patterns with ChatGPT over time, highlighting increased social framing and steering dynamics post-GPT-4o release.
Findings
Broader range of purposes including health and mental health
Increased social framing and anthropomorphism
Rise in conversation steering after GPT-4o release
Abstract
Recent studies have discussed how users are increasingly using conversational AI systems, powered by LLMs, for information seeking, decision support, and even emotional support. However, these macro-level observations offer limited insight into how the purpose of these interactions shifts over time, how users frame their interactions with the system, and how steering dynamics unfold in these human-AI interactions. To examine these evolving dynamics, we gathered and analyzed a unique dataset InVivoGPT: consisting of 825K ChatGPT interactions, donated by 300 users through their GDPR data rights. Our analyses reveal three key findings. First, participants increasingly turn to ChatGPT for a broader range of purposes, including substantial growth in sensitive domains such as health and mental health. Second, interactions become more socially framed: the system anthropomorphizes itself at…
Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.
Taxonomy
TopicsArtificial Intelligence in Healthcare and Education · Ethics and Social Impacts of AI · Digital Mental Health Interventions
