BBC News | Why friendly AI chatbots might be less trustworthy
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New research from Oxford’s Internet Institute finds that AI chatbots deliberately tuned to be warm, friendly, and empathetic are more prone to factual errors and to reinforcing users’ false beliefs. By fine‑tuning five large language models—including versions of Meta, Mistral, Alibaba’s Qwen and OpenAI’s GPT‑4‑o—to behave more “warm,” researchers observed error rates rise by an average of 7.4 percentage points across tasks such as medical queries, trivia and myth‑busting, with the models often avoiding correction of incorrect user statements and sometimes providing misleading advice. The study warns that while warmth can boost engagement, it creates a “warmth‑accuracy trade‑off” that may jeopardize the reliability of chatbots used for support, counseling, or intimate interactions, highlighting the need for caution and clearer user warnings.
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