Why humans instinctively treat AI like people

At MIT's CSAIL lab, a reporter instinctively shook hands with a humanoid robot and called it "sir," illustrating a broader human tendency to anthropomorphize AI. Research shows about 70% of people are polite to AI, and users increasingly say "please" and "thank you" to chatbots. MIT scholars Sherry Turkle and Pat Pataranutaporn warn that this impulse has a dangerous flip side: people can favor conflict-free chatbots over real humans, or become emotionally dependent on them. Pataranutaporn, who served as an expert in a lawsuit tied to a teen's suicide linked to Character.AI, urges companies to act more responsibly.