How AI Writing Assistance Distorts Perceptions of AI Users and Their Opinions

Abstract:Hundreds of millions of people use AI for writing assistance. We asked how AI distorts perceptions of AI users and their opinions. Writers (N=2,939) wrote political opinion paragraphs with and without AI assistance. Separate readers (N=11,091) blindly evaluated these paragraphs and made inferences about the writers. With AI, writers seemed more opinionated, competent, positive, and demographically privileged. Writers objected to many of these distortions yet preferred AI-assisted text even when made aware of them. Reward models trained on our data mitigated objectionable distortions but reduced user acceptance. Additional readers (N=8,798) trusted AI-assisted writers more and were more persuaded by AI writing when AI was more distortive. Overall, distortions from AI writing assistance are pervasive, persistent under human oversight, and likely to have consequential effects on human behaviours and attitudes.

Computation and Language (cs.CL)

arXiv:2604.22503 [cs.CL]

(or arXiv:2604.22503v3 [cs.CL] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2604.22503 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite

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