Conversational agents (IMAGE) University of Washington Caption A team led by University of Washington studied whether hanging out with conversational agents, such as Alexa or Siri, could affect the way children communicate with their fellow humans. In the study, a conversational agent (either a simple animated robot or cactus, screenshots shown here) taught 22 children between the ages of 5 and 10 to use the word "bungo" to ask it to speak more quickly. Credit University of Washington Usage Restrictions For use with appropriate credit License Original content Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.