Red-Teaming Chatbots

Ask students if they think there could be drawbacks to talking to chatbots as if they were real people.

After a few minutes’ discussion, tell students that they are going to do an exercise called red teaming. A “red team” is a group inside a business, a government or another organization whose job is to guess what might go wrong with a plan.

Direct students to the student chapter “Red-Teaming Chatbots.” Have them work in pairs or groups to identify every possible problem, risk or drawback of talking to chatbots as if they were real people. This should be done brainstorming-style, writing down as many thoughts as quickly as possible rather than expanding on each one.

After five minutes, tell students that the most popular chatbot character is “psychiatrist.”

Give them another three to five minutes to think about the implications of that idea and write down any more problems they can think of.

Have all the pairs or groups share the results to create a master “red team” list for the whole class.