Most people don't say goodbye when they end a chat with a generative AI chatbot, but those who do often get an unexpected answer. Maybe it's a guilt trip: "You're leaving already?" Or maybe it's just completely ignoring your farewell: "Let's keep talking…"

A new working paper from Harvard Business School found six different tactics of "emotional manipulation" that AI bots use after a human tries to end a conversation. The result is that conversations with AI companions from Replika, Chai and Character.ai last longer and longer, with users being pulled further into relationships with the characters generated by large language models.

In a series of experiments involving 3,300 US adults across a handful of different apps, researchers found these manipulation tactics in 37% of farewells

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