2023 CanAIProvideEthicalAdvice
- (Terwiesch & Meincke, 2023) ⇒ Christian Terwiesch, and Lennart Meincke. (2023). “Can AI Provide Ethical Advice?.” In: Mack Institute for Innovation Management, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania Journal.
Subject Headings: Ethics Advice.
Notes
- The research includes an experiment comparing ethical advice from Dr. Kwame Anthony Appiah to advice generated by GPT-4.
- It uses 20 ethical dilemmas from the New York Times column "The Ethicist" and compares Dr. Appiah's published advice to GPT-4 generated advice.
- It evaluates the perceived usefulness of the advice using 3 groups: Prolific subjects, Wharton MBA students, and ethics experts.
- It finds human and AI advice were rated as equally useful on average across all groups in an absolute rating.
- It shows layperson Prolific subjects slightly favored the AI advice overall when forced to choose.
- It finds the average usefulness rating was around 5 out of 7, suggesting usefulness in both human and AI advice.
- It suggests AI systems can provide useful ethical advice comparable to a human expert.
- It notes limitations around controversy, empathy, and generalization of the AI advice.
- It proposes AI advice could address unmet needs by augmenting human decision-making with convenient ethics perspectives.
Cited By
Quotes
Abstract
This study investigates the efficacy of an AI-based ethical advisor using the GPT-4 model. Drawing from a pool of ethical dilemmas published in the New York Times column "The Ethicist," we compared the ethical advice given by the human expert and author of the column, Dr. Kwame Anthony Appiah, with AI-generated advice. The comparison is done by evaluating the perceived usefulness of the ethical advice across three distinct groups: random subjects recruited from an online platform, Wharton MBA students, and a panel of ethical decision-making experts comprising academics and clergy. Our findings revealed no significant difference in the perceived value of the advice between human generated ethical advice and AI-generated ethical advice. When forced to choose between the two sources of advice, the random subjects recruited online displayed a slight but significant preference for the AI-generated advice, selecting it 60% of the time, while MBA students and the expert panel showed no significant preference.
References
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| Author | volume | Date Value | title | type | journal | titleUrl | doi | note | year | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 CanAIProvideEthicalAdvice | Christian Terwiesch Lennart Meincke | Can AI Provide Ethical Advice | 2023 |