Article by Chana R. Schoenberger: “Seeing an AI disclosure on a social post leads users to disengage, because they feel the creator spent less effort on making it….No one thinks that content creators posting on social media are speaking directly to them. But knowing that the creator used generative AI to make their video or image, rather than pouring their own effort into it, drives users to feel less of a connection with the creator, and to engage less with the post.
A new study finds that seeing an AI disclosure on a social post leads users to feel the creator spent less effort on making it, causing it to lose authenticity. The authors from the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business—Stephan Carney and Ignacio Riveros, both doctoral students in marketing, and Stephanie M. Tully, associate professor of business administration—see implications for how influencers, brands, and social media platforms deal with the widespread and growing use of AI for post creation.
Social media creates parasocial connections, “one-sided emotional bonds between consumers and creators,” in which users feel a kind of attachment to the person creating the posts, the authors write. When users see an AI disclosure on a post, they take that to mean the creator didn’t work as hard on it, and they lose their appetite to engage with the video. But if they see an AI disclosure worded to indicate that the creator did put work into the post, the effect isn’t as strong, the researchers found.
The study evolved out of a broader question about how AI is changing consumer decision-making, Carney says. At first, the researchers started looking at whether people would feel more comfortable with a social media post knowing that AI had been used to make it.
They theorized that a more transparent approach would help, but instead they discovered that knowing that AI was involved in a post’s creation made users uninterested in it. “They’re not likely to engage with it or think that it’s good,” he says. This finding held regardless of the user’s age, so it wasn’t related to generational familiarity with the technology.
The question became: What causes this effect? It wasn’t because the quality of the content was lower when AI was used; in fact, both types of content had similar quality levels. It also wasn’t general distrust of AI or anger at being deceived by AI. Instead, the researchers found that AI use disrupted the attachment that users had to the creator of the content…(More)”.
