Minority social influence and moral decision-making in human–AI interaction: The effects of identity and specialization cues

In group decision-making, the behavior of each member is sensitive to the social influence of other majority members. Research on majority influence has shown that multiple non-human agents with anthropomorphic cues can exert normative pressure on a lone human decision-maker. However, how individuals perceive and respond to minority influence exerted by a lone machine is rarely discussed. Hence, a between-subjects experiment was conducted to examine how different minority identity (human vs artificial intelligence [AI]) and specialization (specialist vs generalist) cues influence individuals’ perceptions and behavior in response to moral dilemmas in a joint human–AI group. The results confirmed the significant role of specialization cues in predicting in-group identification, source credibility, and conversion behavior. In addition, the participants perceived the human minority as more credible than the AI minority, which prompted conversion behavior when the minority was labeled as a specialist rather than as a generalist.