Artificial intelligence or the others? The consequences of social influence on reliance on advice from artificial intelligence

Abstract

Organizations are constantly confronted with decisions. The outcome of decisions can have a tremendous impact on the future of the organizations. Thus, organizations are continually investing in different tools that will help them improve the decision making. In this sense, organizations have commonly decided to invest in advice from human experts but lately, due to technological advancements, organizations have started to invest in artificial intelligence (AI; human¬AI decision making). Considering that strategic decisions are commonly taken in groups, this thesis aims to research the impact of social influence on advice taking (from humans and AI). Particularly, this thesis investigates how humans react to advice from machine learning algorithms and advice from human experts in a strategic decision about an IPO valuation. Moreover, this dissertation also studies the impact of unanimous majority in team settings and the impact it has on advice taking. The results suggest the robustness of cognitive biases (e.g., anchoring) affecting the decision-making process. Additionally, the findings of this thesis demonstrate the presence of a motivated component (e.g., motivated reasoning) affecting advice taking in strategic decision-making processes. Moreover, the results reveal the importance of the perceived trustworthiness of the advisor, be it an AI tool or human. Nevertheless, the results show no significant effect of the social influence manipulation on advice taking nor of the source of the influence.

Date of Award	20 Oct 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Filipa de Almeida (Supervisor)