“Digital Friend” or “It”? Conceptualizations of LLM ‐Powered Chatbots in National Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence Crisis Hotlines
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: ABSTRACT This paper reports on the use of chatbots among US‐based, national sexual assault and domestic violence hotlines, and examines how these chatbots are conceptualized. Because chatbots are indifferent to their outputs but survivors in crisis/danger require trauma‐informed, empathetic support, it is important to understand how hotlines conceptualize their chatbots and present them to survivors. Through qualitative content analysis of supporting documentation about the chatbots, this project found that the hotlines describe similar purposes of the chatbots and state the chatbots are not replacements for live services. However, the hotlines diverge in how they refer to the chatbots (“it” vs. “she” / “digital friend”) and in what features the chatbot offers. The use of “she” and “digital friend,” and the knowledge and skills required by some purported features of the chatbots blur the line between the chatbot being a simple, information retrieval tool and human‐like enough to replace trained, live support.
DOI: 10.1002/pra2.1349
Author: Nikki M. Wise
Institution: University of Maryland, College Park
Language: English
Topic: AI in Service Interactions
Subfield: Artificial Intelligence
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W7092213866