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AI increases unethical consumer behavior due to reduced anticipatory guilt

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Abstract

The current research focuses on examining how the use of artificial intelligence and robotic technology, emerging non-human agent innovations in service industries, influences consumers’ likelihood of engaging in unethical behavior. Previous research has shown that non-human (vs. human) agents are perceived differently along many dimensions by consumers (e.g., that they lack emotional capability), leading to various behavioral changes when interacting with them. We hypothesize and show across four studies that interacting with non-human (vs. human) agents, such as AI and robots, increases the tendency to engage in unethical consumer behaviors due to reduced anticipatory feelings of guilt. We also demonstrate the moderating role of anthropomorphism such that endowing humanlike features on non-human agents reduces unethical behavior. We also rule out alternative explanations for the effect, including differential perceptions about the agents (e.g., “warmth,” “competence,” or “detection capacity”) and other measures associated with the company capabilities.

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Change history

  • 16 May 2022

    Springer Nature's version of this paper was updated to present the correct Supplementary Information.

Notes

  1. The use of the term “AI” in this research encompasses various non-human technologies that fits the provided definition. Some representative examples of AI are algorithms (e.g., IBM’s Watson), virtual agents (e.g., Alexa or Google home), robots (e.g., Lowebot assisting customers at the Lowe’s), and chatbots.

  2. We found a similar effect that participants are more likely to engage in unethical behavior in AI condition (β= 1.00, Wald = 4.81, p < .03) when we excluded two participants who correctly guessed the purpose of this study, ruling out the demand effect.

  3. We excluded four participants who did not recall the agent type that they interacted with. In the subsequent analysis, we included only 133 participants.

  4. Option 1: I changed my mind (you should pay $6.99 for ship** cost); Option 2: I don’t like it (you should pay $6.99 for ship** cost); Option 3: Size doesn’t fit (free return); Option 4: Item is not the same as it was shown in the picture (free return).

  5. We found an identical pattern of effect of the agent type on consumers’ unethical behavior (β = .85, Wald = 5.33, p < .03) and the mediating role of anticipatory guilt (CI95% = [.0052, 1.1696]) when seven participants who were potentially affected by the demand effect were excluded from the analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Marketing, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, Australia

    TaeWoo Kim

  2. Department of Marketing, Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, South Korea

    Hye** Lee

  3. Rady School of Management, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Michelle Yoosun Kim

  4. Department of Marketing, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada

    SunAh Kim

  5. Department of Marketing, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Adam Duhachek

  6. Marketing, University of Sydney, Camperdown, Australia

    Adam Duhachek

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Kim, T., Lee, H., Kim, M.Y. et al. AI increases unethical consumer behavior due to reduced anticipatory guilt. J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. 51, 785–801 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-021-00832-9

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