Seminar: AI-Powered Promises: The Influence of ChatGPT on Trust and Trustworthiness

Theo Offerman, University of Amsterdam

AI-Powered Promises: The Influence of ChatGPT on Trust and Trustworthiness

Amidst the growing popularity of AI language models, we study the potential impacts of AI-facilitated communication on trust and trustworthiness. With a laboratory experiment, we compare traditional communication with communication assisted by ChatGPT in a between-subject design. We find that participants with access to ChatGPT more frequently make promises, while their promise-keeping rate diminishes. Overall we do not observe effects on trust and trustworthiness rates. However, we show that in the GPT treatment participants coordinate less often on the trust outcome and that promises no longer serve as a reliable indicator of honesty.

Ivo Greevink, Theo Offerman, and Giorgia Romagnoli (2024). AI-Powered Promises: The Influence of ChatGPT on Trust and Trustworthiness. PDF-file

Theo Offerman is the professor of Behavioral Game Theory at the University of Amsterdam (since 2005). His academic interests include the fields of Behavioral Economics, Experimental Economics and Game Theory. His research has focused on topics like auctions, reciprocity, public goods, strategic communication, discrimination, the erosion of morals in markets and via the interaction with AI. Theo is a fellow of the Tinbergen Institute and a CESS research fellow.

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