Can artificial intelligence influence our attitudes and decisions? This is the question that Ujué Agudo and Helena Matute, researchers at the University of Deusto, in Bilbao, Spain, have been looking into. Whether in the field of politics or dating, they conducted several experiments to establish their conclusions. The results of their study have been published inan article this April.

The influence of artificial intelligence on decision making

Today, many people are dealing with artificial intelligence. It is part of our lives and it seems legitimate to ask how AI can influence our judgment and perception of things. Three researchers at the University of Georgia’s Department of Information Technology were interested in this question and deduced that we tend to trust machines and algorithms more than other human beings in a decision making situation.

In order to shed new light on this issue, Ujué Agudo and Helena Matute, from the University of Deusto, researched the influence of algorithms on people’s decisions during political elections or during a romantic encounter. This study investigates whether algorithms can persuade people (implicitly or explicitly) to vote for or date a particular candidate, or whether, on the contrary, individuals reject the influence of AI to preserve some freedom of action.

Can we be influenced by AI in voting or dating processes?

In four experiments, the two researchers attempted to answer this question by testing the influence of AI in different contexts. They recruited participants who interacted with algorithms that presented photos of fictitious political candidates or of people who were in favour of online dating. The participants were asked to indicate in a questionnaire which candidate they would be able to vote for or which person they would send a message to for a possible online meeting.

The nuance is that the algorithms promoted some of these candidates, either explicitly by specifying a strong romantic or political compatibility, for example, or implicitly, by showing one personality more often than another.

Overall, the experiments showed that the algorithms had a significant influence on participants’ voting or love message decisions. For political decisions, explicit manipulation significantly influenced decisions, while implicit manipulation was not effective. The opposite effect was observed for dating decisions.

Researchers call for awareness around artificial intelligence systems

The researchers believe that these results may reflect people’s preference for explicit advice from humans when it comes to subjective issues such as dating, while people may prefer algorithmic advice when it comes to rational political decisions.

In their conclusion, the researchers state that it is important to educate people against trusting and blindly following the advice of algorithms. According to them, it is also necessary to have a discussion about who can own and use the data that allow these kinds of algorithms to work effectively. Finally, they express their support for initiatives to strengthen the trustworthiness of AI, such as the European Commission’s Ethical Guidelines for Trustworthy AI and DARPA’s Explainable AI (XAI) program.

Translated from Quelle est l’influence de l’intelligence artificielle sur les décisions de vote et les rencontres en ligne ?