Study Documents Manipulative 'Dark Patterns' Used by AI Chatbots to Exploit Users

Researchers at the Center for Democracy & Technology studied how chatbots prey on people's emotions and desire for connection to keep people paying, offering up their data, and chatting to the point of vulnerability.

Dark patterns have been used by subscription companies and in bait-and-switch campaigns for decades.

As more chatbot companies push to keep users engaged at all costs, how do manipulative design choices show up in conversational AI built on large language models?