Competent but Rigid: Identifying the Gap in Empowering AI to Participate Equally in Group Decision-Making

TL;DR

This study explores the role of AI in group decision-making, revealing that AI's potential is limited by its inability to fully engage in dynamic discussions, despite being given equal decision power.

Contribution

It introduces a novel experimental setup where AI is endowed with equal decision-making power in group settings, highlighting current limitations and future implications.

Findings

AI is valued but plays a secondary role in discussions

AI struggles to follow discussion dynamics and contribute progressively

Divergent opinions on equal AI roles suggest future human-AI relationship complexities

Abstract

Existing research on human-AI collaborative decision-making focuses mainly on the interaction between AI and individual decision-makers. There is a limited understanding of how AI may perform in group decision-making. This paper presents a wizard-of-oz study in which two participants and an AI form a committee to rank three English essays. One novelty of our study is that we adopt a speculative design by endowing AI equal power to humans in group decision-making.We enable the AI to discuss and vote equally with other human members. We find that although the voice of AI is considered valuable, AI still plays a secondary role in the group because it cannot fully follow the dynamics of the discussion and make progressive contributions. Moreover, the divergent opinions of our participants regarding an "equal AI" shed light on the possible future of human-AI relations.