Corrupted by Algorithms? How AI-generated and Human-written Advice Shape (Dis)honesty

Understand

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.