The New York Times Describes “Bot Loops”: AI Assistants Increasingly Talk to Each Other Instead of People

The New York Times Describes “Bot Loops”: AI Assistants Increasingly Talk to Each Other Instead of People

On August 14, The New York Times collected examples from recruitment, education, customer support, and dating in which both participants in a conversation delegate part of the exchange to artificial intelligence programs. The column calls this arrangement a “bot loop”: one assistant writes, calls, or screens candidates, and another does the same in response.

While looking for work, Christian Vinson spent almost ten hours telling two chatbots about his experience, including his education, a banking internship, and five years of military service. The chatbots then tailored cover letters for hundreds of job openings. Companies already use programs to review large volumes of applications, so one bot may have written Vinson’s letter while another selected it.

The distinction from ordinary email is straightforward, according to The New York Times column. Email carries words between people, whereas the program in this case performs part of the participant’s work. It drafts a message, reads a message from someone else, and decides whom to answer or select. The instructions from one account owner become input for another program.

This kind of exchange is especially consequential when a message leads to an action. In an article in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, the author examines a hypothetical emergency department scenario. One system uses an X-ray image to identify the type of fracture. Two other systems receive its label. One assigns patients to wards, while the other helps determine the urgency of treatment and allocate resources. If the first system makes an error, both subsequent systems will work from an incorrect label. The author proposes human review of such decisions and a record of how each decision was made.

The column applies the same mechanism to an everyday situation. A personal assistant calls plumbers, and a repair company’s virtual receptionist answers. The author suggests that, over time, speaking to a real person on the phone may become a separate paid service.