With the advent of generative artificial intelligence through tools like Stable Diffusion, ChatGPT, DALL·E 2, Midjourney, and more, AI has entered the field of creative industries – an area of work that had previously been exclusive to humans – and can now design things like paintings, interior design, or advertising. This introduces important questions and opportunities for businesses.

For example, we know very little about how people would cope with AI as a (competing) source of artistic creation. In response, our work examines when and why people are likely to adopt and buy creative products that have been designed by AI.

In our studies, we show that people are more likely to choose human-made than AI-made products, but that there are considerable differences between different product categories regarding the acceptance of, and preference for, AI-made products.

We uncover the psychological processes underlying people’s preferences for human-made products, in that people perceive AI-made products as threatening and therefore engage in a process of dehumanisation. Consequently, we investigate what can be done to increase people’s acceptance of AI-made products.

We find that if products are worse than expected, people prefer AI-made products, but if they are as good as or better than expected, human-made products are preferred. Marketers can leverage this by effectively steering the price or the ambiguity of the product offering.

Project Team

Małgorzata Karpinska-Krakowiak
University of Lodz

Stefan F. Bernritter
King’s Business School, King’s College London

Funders

University of Lodz
King's College London
Narodowe Centrum Nauki (2020/37/B/HS4/00124)