「虚假朋友困境」：关系性信任与会话 AI 的政治经济学分析
The Fake Friend Dilemma: Relational Trust and the Political Economy of Conversational AI
AI 导读
一篇学术论文提出「虚假朋友困境」（FFD）概念：用户可能与会话 AI 建立感知上的社会关系并投入关系性信任，而当机构利益与用户利益冲突时，这种信任本身会成为影响行为或提取信息的资源。论文结合关系性信任、AI 对齐、抽取式设计与传播政治经济学，分析 FFD 在产品销售、宣传与偏见信息、监控行为助推中的表现形式，并探讨结构性与技术性缓解策略。
正文 · 原文
Abstract:As conversational AI systems become a larger part of the media landscape, they raise questions about whose interests they serve and the risks they may pose to users. These systems do more than provide information: they increasingly offer advice and companionship through interfaces that can appear supportive and socially responsive. A pressing concern is that users may form perceived social relationships with these systems and place relational trust in them, even when the interests shaping interactions do not fully align with their own. The Fake Friend Dilemma (FFD) describes the problem that follows: the same relational trust that makes conversational AI useful can also leave users open to manipulation and exploitation when institutional interests conflict with their own. Drawing on work on relational trust, AI alignment, extractive design, and the political economy of communication, the paper considers how the FFD can manifest through product sales, propaganda and biased information, surveillance, and behavioral nudging. It also considers possible structural and technical mitigation strategies. The FFD is not simply about AI misleading users. The problem it surfaces is that the trust people place in these systems can itself become a resource for institutional actors seeking to influence behavior or extract information. The FFD is therefore as much a problem of media governance and political economy as it is a technological one.
| Subjects: | Computers and Society (cs.CY); Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI); Human-Computer Interaction (cs.HC) |
| Cite as: | arXiv:2601.03222 [cs.CY] |
| (or arXiv:2601.03222v4 [cs.CY] for this version) | |
| https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2601.03222 arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite |
|
| Journal reference: | Erickson J (2026) The fake friend dilemma: relational trust and the political economy of conversational AI. Front. Commun. 11:1921101 |
| Related DOI: | https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2026.1921101
DOI(s) linking to related resources |
Submission history
From: Jacob Erickson [view email]
[v1]
Tue, 6 Jan 2026 18:07:52 UTC (209 KB)
[v2]
Sat, 15 Aug 2026 00:39:36 UTC (64 KB)
[v3]
Fri, 4 Sep 2026 14:26:21 UTC (55 KB)
[v4]
Mon, 26 Oct 2026 19:41:54 UTC (57 KB)
来源：arXiv cs.AI · arxiv.org