AI increases unethical consumer behavior due to reduced anticipatory guilt

The current research focuses on examining how the use of artificial intelligence and robotic technology, emerging non-human agent innovations in service industries, influences consumers’ likelihood of engaging in unethical behavior. Previous research has shown that non-human (vs. human) agents are perceived differently along many dimensions by consumers (e.g., that they lack emotional capability), leading to various behavioral changes when interacting with them. We hypothesize and show across four studies that interacting with non-human (vs. human) agents, such as AI and robots, increases the tendency to engage in unethical consumer behaviors due to reduced anticipatory feelings of guilt. We also demonstrate the moderating role of anthropomorphism such that endowing humanlike features on non-human agents reduces unethical behavior. We also rule out alternative explanations for the effect, including differential perceptions about the agents (e.g., “warmth,” “competence,” or “detection capacity”) and other measures associated with the company capabilities.