Humanization of Virtual Assistants and Delegation Choices

Nanyin Yang, Marco Palma () and Andreas Drichoutis

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Virtual assistants powered by artificial intelligence are present in virtually every aspect of daily life. Although they are computer algorithms, most are represented with humanized personal characteristics. We study whether assigning them a gender affects the propensity to delegate a search in two online experiments and compare it to human counterparts of identical characteristics. Virtual assistants generally receive higher delegation than humans. Gender has differential effects in delegation rates impacting the user's welfare. The results are entirely driven by female subjects. We find mild spillover effects, primarily decreasing selection of male humans after interacting with low-quality male virtual assistants.

Keywords: anthropomorphic features; artificial intelligence; autonomy; delegation; gender (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C90 D23 D82 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-11-26
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ain and nep-exp
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:119275

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