People act more rationally when interacting with AI, new research finds

People perceive artificial intelligence (AI) as more rational and reason-driven, while viewing human decision-making as more influenced by emotion, according to new research from UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School.

Behavioural scientists, Dr Suhas Vijayakumar, Dr Yuna Yang, and Dr David DeFranza, explore how “lay beliefs” – common, everyday understandings of a concept or phenomenon – directly shape behaviour. In an economic game with real financial stakes, participants chose whether to accept or reject unfair monetary offers from an AI or a human partner. The partner would propose a division of $1; $0.90 for the partner and $0.10 for the participant. Rejecting this offer would result in both the partner and participant receiving $0.

Accepting this unfair offer is considered the economically rational choice, as it maximises personal gain. Participants who believed they were interacting with AI were significantly more likely to accept these offers, indicating more rational decision-making.


However, the researchers note this effect may reflect people adjusting their behaviour to match a counterpart they believe to be highly logical rather than something unique to AI.

The findings highlight how perceptions of AI can influence real-world decisions, with implications for businesses, policymakers and in negotiations as human-AI interactions become increasingly common.

The researchers argue that decision-makers should be aware of the potential existence of lay beliefs about AI’s decision-making style and consider how such beliefs may influence the acceptance of AI recommendations and subsequent human decisions.

“We speculate perhaps a reason why people are less likely to accept a similar unfair offer from a person (human), could also be because of expectations of reciprocity and emotional fairness that we share with other human beings. Future research needs to look at further expectations and beliefs about AI”, says Dr Vijayakumar.

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For more information or to speak with the researchers, please contact Lucy Whytock at lucy@bluesky-pr.com or call +44 1582797940