For a few weeks last school year, a small group of students in Dayton, Ohio, regularly sat in front of laptops in conversation with a social-emotional learning chatbot named Jordan.
Unlike AI chatbots that are designed to be agreeable — and even sycophantic — Jordan presents as angsty: On the day NPR visited, the chatbot told students, “Lately, I’ve been feeling like what’s the point of any of this? I’m not failing. I just don’t care. You ever feel like that?”
“Jordan’s a little whiner, but I always help him out,” said K, a sophomore at the Alternative School at Jackson Center, which is part of Dayton Public Schools.
