The Double-Edged Sword of Anthropomorphism in LLMs

Humans may have evolved to be “hyperactive agency detectors”. Upon hearing a rustle in a pile of leaves, it would be safer to assume that an agent, like a lion, hides beneath (even if there may ultimately be nothing there). Can this evolutionary cognitive mechanism—and related mechanisms of anthropomorphism—explain some of people’s contemporary experience with using chatbots (e.g., ChatGPT, Gemini)? In this paper, we sketch how such mechanisms may engender the seemingly irresistible anthropomorphism of large language-based chatbots.