Artificial Intelligence (AI) increasingly becomes an indispensable advisor. New ethical concerns arise if AI persuades people to behave dishonestly. In an experiment, we study how AI advice (generated by a Natural-Language-Processing algorithm) affects (dis)honesty, compare it to equivalent human advice, and test whether transparency about advice source matters. We find that dishonesty-promoting advice increases dishonesty, whereas honesty-promoting advice does not increase honesty. This is the case for both AI- and human advice. Algorithmic transparency, a commonly proposed policy to mitigate AI risks, does not affect behaviour. The findings mark the first steps towards managing AI advice responsibly.
@article{arxiv.2301.01954,
title = {Corrupted by Algorithms? How AI-generated and Human-written Advice Shape (Dis)honesty},
author = {Margarita Leib and Nils Köbis and Rainer Michael Rilke and Marloes Hagens and Bernd Irlenbusch},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2301.01954},
year = {2023}
}
Comments
* shared first-authorship This is an updated version of the pre-print arXiv:2102.07536 with a new data set