A Quiet Uprising Against Chatbots? | Nonprofit Quarterly | Civic News. Empowering Nonprofits. Advancing Justice.

"“I fully went into those workshops expecting that they would say, 'We much prefer ChatGPT and Meta's AI,' and that we would have to conclude we don't have a reason to exist,” McKay told NPQ. “And yet, quite the opposite occurred.”"

"“While they liked the user experience of ChatGPT and Meta's AI more, they scored our service higher on trustworthiness and local relevance. And so, we left those workshops thinking, 'OK, maybe we do deserve to continue to exist.' But how do we leverage what LLMs make available to us to make our service even better?”"

"“Making [a bot] more human-like may backfire.” “This is a question all organizations might do well to ask themselves amid the wave of AI products and services sweeping the nonprofit sector. A counterintuitive consensus is emerging from research and real-world experiences within nonprofits: People don't like AI that tries too hard to be human-a finding that may carry particularly important consequences for organizations whose missions are based on conscientiousness and compassion.”"

SameSame Collective is a nonprofit providing direct mental health advice to queer youth in places with limited public acceptance and community support. Founded in 2021, it built automated chat agents on WhatsApp. After large language models like ChatGPT emerged, the organization tested whether users preferred an AI-powered chatbot over its existing service. Workshop results showed users liked the experience of ChatGPT and Meta’s AI more, but rated SameSame’s service higher for trustworthiness and local relevance. The organization concluded it should continue and focus on leveraging LLM capabilities to improve its service. Research indicates that making bots more human-like can backfire, and people may be disenchanted with overly human-like AI.

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