Emily Chan
A new study has revealed that most people prefer artificial intelligence (AI) over humans to make major decisions about how financial resources are distributed. On the other hand, the outcome of the study shows that people are happier when humans make such decisions.
An online decision experiment was used to assess people’s preferences for human or AI decision-makers. It was conducted by researchers from the University of Portsmouth and the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition.
Over 200 individuals from the United Kingdom and Germany were asked to vote on whether they wanted an algorithm or a human to determine how much money they should earn after the completion of a series of specific tasks.
In the experiment, humans and AI decision-makers reallocated earnings from three tasks between two participants.
The study focused on decisions regarding the distribution of financial resources because of how prevalent they are in politics and the economy. The researchers found that 64 percent of participants favored algorithms over humans.
The participants were motivated by ideals about fairness, not just their own interests. When the AI made the decision, they tolerated any deviation between the decision and their own interests, as long as one principle of fairness was followed.
When the decision did not correspond with common principles of fairness, the participants had a negative reaction. The preference challenges the notion that humans are favored when it comes to making decisions that involve a moral component like fairness.
Although they were more inclined to lean toward AI decision-making, the participants were more satisfied with the decisions that humans made. Interestingly enough, they found the decision of AI “less fair” than the one made by humans.
Overall, people were more open to AI making decisions because it is perceived to have a lack of bias, high performance and an ability to explain decisions. The researchers believe that when participants knew an AI was making a decision that they viewed as fair, the outcomes were easier to accept.
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