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This is a great idea for an experiment.

I’m not sure how it would go.

Some people would refuse to give info to both the simple form and the personality rich chat bot. Some would give info to both. But how big is the middle area?

One thing is certain though — whatever format is more successful at getting peoples info — that’s the one that you’d see more and more of over time.

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I was reading The Hacker's Mind by Bruce Schneier and he relays an experiment where a clearly imperfect navigation robot gives wrong directions to people repeatedly. Then a simulated emergency occurs, and the robot changes to saying "follow me to the exit" basically and points to a dark room instead of the routes the people took just minutes before, and despite having experienced the robot doesn't navigate well, people tend to follow the robot's instructions.

Welp.

I’m not even slightly surprised, but i fact checked this anyway. Here’s the article — and it’s even more alarming when you read the details.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/04/people_trust_...

Thanks for the interesting example / terrifying insight into human nature.

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