Better curious than smart?: Enhance inclusiveness between mismatched conversational partners: An opinion paper

UPDATED—March 29, 2023. As a rapidly developing user interface, conversational interaction has been adopted in an increasing number of technology products. In theory, the conversational user interface is seen as a tool that can cut through all complexity in human-agent interaction. Still, in reality, it is not yet so effective, especially for non-mainstream users, such as elderly people. One of the reasons could be that such agents and human users are considered mismatched partners in conversations. In this regard, this article illustrates why speech-enabled artificial agents, as mismatched partners, would create barriers to inclusiveness. Adding to that, by looking at other mismatched conversational partners, it seeks ways to enhance inclusivity for human-agent conversational interactions using a collaborative approach.