Abstract
Non-cognitive skills are crucial for personal and social life well-being, and such skill development can be supported by narrative-based (e.g., storytelling) technologies. While generative AI enables interactive and role-playing storytelling, little is known about how users engage with and perceive the use of AI in social life simulation for non-cognitive skills learning. To this end, we introduced SimuLife++, an interactive platform enabled by a large language model (LLM). The system allows users to act as protagonists, creating stories with one or multiple AI-based characters in diverse social scenarios. In particular, we expanded the Human-AI interaction to a Human-AI-AI collaboration by including a sage agent, who acts as a bystander to provide users with more insightful perspectives on their choices and conversations. Through a within-subject user study, we found that the inclusion of the sage agent significantly enhanced narrative immersion, according to the narrative transportation scale, leading to more messages, particularly in group chats. Participants' interactions with the sage agent were also associated with significantly higher scores in their perceived motivation, self-perceptions, and resilience and coping, indicating positive impacts on non-cognitive skills reflection. Participants' interview results further explained the sage agent's aid in decision-making, solving ethical dilemmas, and problem-solving; on the other hand, they suggested improvements in user control and balanced responses from multiple characters. We provide design implications on the application of generative AI in narrative solutions for non-cognitive skill development in broader social contexts.
Abstract (translated)
非认知技能对个人和社交生活的幸福感至关重要，而且这种技能的发展可以通过基于叙述（如讲故事）的技术得到支持。虽然生成型AI可以实现交互式和角色扮演式讲故事，但用户如何参与和使用AI在社交生活模拟中学习非认知技能的程度尚不清楚。为此，我们引入了SimuLife++，一个由大型语言模型（LLM）支持的交互式平台。该系统允许用户作为主人公，与一个或多个基于AI的角色在多样社交场景中创造故事。特别是，我们通过增加一个智者代理，将人机交互扩展到人机-AI-人合作，智者代理充当了一个观察者的角色，为用户提供对他们选择和对话的更深刻的见解。通过一个自我中心用户研究，我们发现，智者代理的引入显著增强了故事沉浸感，根据情节传递规模，导致更多的信息，特别是在群聊中。参与者和智者代理的交互还被认为与他们的感知动机、自我认知和韧性及应对的得分显著相关，表明对非认知技能反思产生了积极影响。参与者的访谈结果进一步解释了智者代理在决策、解决伦理困境和解决问题方面的帮助；另一方面，他们提出了用户控制和多角色回应平衡的改进建议。我们在更广泛的社交背景下探讨了生成型AI在非认知技能发展中的叙事解决方案的设计建议。
URL
https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.00273
