Designing for the Invisible: Raising Awareness for the Experience of the Homeless in an LLM-based Serious Game

Abstract

The experiences of the homeless are often distorted in public discourse, leading to stereotypes that overshadow underlying motives. To give voice to the perspectives of the homeless, we designed an interactive serious game based on in-depth interviews with eight homeless individuals. Qualitative coding of the transcripts revealed key themes that guided the design of three NPCs, whose dialogues were represented using LLMs. User testing revealed that players actively initiated conversations with LLM-based NPCs, used empathetic language during dialogues, and demonstrated empathy during the dialogues. However, LLMs struggle to capture the complexity of homeless people fully, sometimes misrepresenting sensitive experiences, reducing authenticity of the experience. These findings suggest first-person interview strategies for careful consideration of limitations of LLMs in attempting to represent marginalized groups. We deliberate on the scope of serious games for raising awareness of social issues while stating their biases and limitations in representing marginalized groups.