Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

This study investigates whether expressing gratitude to an AI chatbot improves users' subjective evaluations of the chatbot's preceding response. To this end, I implemented Thank-You Chat, a text-based chat interface with an intent-oriented response suggestion function. Specifically, the system provides a response suggestion that expresses gratitude to the AI chatbot, prompting users to spontaneously send a grateful message by selecting the suggested response. I conducted an evaluation experiment under three conditions: a gratitude condition, an acknowledgment condition, and a no-suggestion condition. Participants reported that the AI chatbot followed their instructions and made an effort when they used response suggestions that expressed gratitude. Furthermore, they became more willing to use AI chatbots frequently after using the gratitude-expressing response suggestions. These findings provide insights for interaction design aimed at fostering an ongoing relationship between humans and AI.