Botanical-Chatbot

Plants play an essential role in our ecosystems, yet they rarely receive the recognition they deserve, a phenomenon known as plant blindness. Unlike animals, plants lack the expressive means of communication that make other living beings feel relatable, which keeps them psychologically distant from us.

This project explores whether conversational AI can close that distance. We developed Plantality, a framework that translates the botanical characteristics of a plant, its survival strategies, ecological relationships, and growth habits, into a distinct, evidence-grounded personality and speaking style. Rather than projecting arbitrary human traits onto plants, each Plantality is derived from the plant's actual biology.

Building on the HEXACO model of personality, we distilled twelve candidate dimensions into six that best differentiate plants and map onto observable botanical attributes. Using this framework, we designed chatbot characters for three plants with clearly distinct profiles, rosemary, mugwort, and orchid, and let participants converse with them about the plants' lives, strategies, and environments.

Through a pre–post study, we examine how experiencing a plant's Plantality changes people's psychological distance to nature and their perception of plants, including plant intelligence, personality diversity, survival and reproductive drives, capacities for cooperation and coexistence, and the value of protecting them. We also investigate how plausible, consistent, and novel participants find each Plantality, and how these qualities shape the experience.