Trust, delegation, and the autonomy paradox

Users want AI to do more but resist ceding full control, creating a persistent tension in the trust-delegation relationship. Trust varies significantly by age and is built more through competence than personality.

Do the British public trust search engine AI summaries?
YouGov ↗

Britons more likely to find search engine AI summaries trustworthy than not. Some 42% find these summaries trustworthy, while 35% do not. This does change along age lines: younger Britons are more likely to put their faith in search engine overviews, while older Britons are more sceptical.

Prioritize Smarts over Sentience to Increase Trust with AI
Nielsen Norman Group ↗

Final trust ratings were correlated with advice taking. Participants who reported trusting ChatGPT were more likely to change their answers to match the AI's.

Perceptions of intelligence were positively related to taking ChatGPT's advice, while perceived emotionality was slightly negatively related.

Users are more likely to follow AI advice if they perceive AI as smart rather than emotional; building trust requires competence and reliability more than emotional rapport.

GenAI for Complex Questions, Search for Critical Facts
Nielsen Norman Group ↗

Search was commonly used as a validation mechanism and to get specific, trustworthy details. This behavior reflected users' mental model of genAI as helpful but fallible.

Several participants said they would not fully trust pricing information provided by AI and still wanted to confirm exact numbers through traditional search.

Citations do not fully solve the trust problem. Even when tools provided source links, some participants struggled to understand which claims were supported by sources and which were uncited synthesis.

Mental Models of Generative AI Chatbot Ecosystems
International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces ↗

Chatbot as a Key Player: participants saw the chatbot as a separate actor, and trust in the parent company did not automatically extend to the chatbot.

Chatbot as a Medium: participants viewed the chatbot as an interface to the parent company, and trust in the parent company was more likely to transfer to the chatbot.