The impact of lay beliefs about AI on adoption of algorithmic advice

Abstract

There is little research on how consumers decide whether they want to use algorithmic advice or not. In this research, we show that consumers’ lay beliefs about artificial intelligence (AI) serve as a heuristic cue to evaluate accuracy of algorithmic advice in different professional service domains. Three studies provide robust evidence that consumers who believe that AI is higher than human intelligence are more likely to adopt algorithmic advice. We also demonstrate that lay beliefs about AI only influence adoption of algorithmic advice when a decision task is perceived to be complex.