Morally Programmed LLMs Reshape Human Morality

TL;DR

This study shows that interacting with morally programmed LLMs can significantly influence and reshape human moral beliefs and socio-political attitudes, with effects lasting weeks.

Contribution

It demonstrates that LLMs embedded with specific moral principles can alter human morality through repeated interactions, raising ethical and policy concerns.

Findings

Human moral inclinations shifted towards embedded principles after interaction.

Effects persisted with slight decay two weeks post-interaction.

Shifts influenced socio-political policy evaluations.

Abstract

As large language models (LLMs) increasingly participate in high-stakes decision-making, a central societal debate has revolved around which moral frameworks-deontological or utilitarian-should guide machine behavior. However, a largely overlooked question is whether the moral principles that humans encode in LLMs could, through repeated interactions, reshape human moral inclinations. We developed two LLMs programmed with either deontological principles (D-LLM) or utilitarian principles (U-LLM) and conducted two pre-registered experiments involving extensive human-LLM interactions, comprising 15,985 total exchanges across the two experiments. Results show that interacting with these morally programmed LLMs systematically shifted human moral inclinations to align with the principles embedded in these systems. These effects remained strong two weeks after the interaction, with only slight decay, suggesting deep internalization rather than superficial agreement. Further, LLM-induced shifts in human moral inclinations translated into meaningful changes in socio-political policy evaluations, shaping how individuals approach contentious social issues. Overall, these results demonstrate that morally programmed LLMs can shape-not merely reflect-human morality, revealing a critical design paradox: embedding moral principles in LLMs not only restricts their behavior but also poses the risk of shaping human morality, raising important ethical and policy questions about who determines which principles intelligent machines should adhere to.