arXiv:2603.27413cs.CYcs.AI2026-03

AI政治宣传被视作不正当,既因目的说服,也因机器参与。

The Hidden Costs of AI-Mediated Political Outreach: Persuasion and AI Penalties in the US and UK

  • 通过美英两国实验对比人类与AI在信息与说服两种互动下的效果
  • 说服型宣传降低接受度,AI介入更引发自主权担忧和信任损失
  • 研究揭示公众对AI政治沟通的双重排斥机制,适合政策制定者参考

随着人工智能系统在政治竞选中应用日益广泛,一个关键问题尚未得到充分实证研究:公众如何评价这些系统的传播方式,以及这种评价会产生何种后果?现有研究多聚焦于强制接触下的态度变化,忽略了人们对AI中介传播是否合法的判断。本文在美英两国开展预注册2×2实验(每国N=1,800),在受访者高度关注的政治议题背景下,考察了互动意图(信息性 vs. 说服性)与互动主体(人类 vs. AI中介)的影响。结果发现两种评价惩罚效应一致存在:说服性宣传在两国几乎所有指标上均被评价为更不可接受、更具威胁性、益处更低、损害组织信任;而AI中介宣传则触发规范性担忧,导致五项评估指标均出现负面评价,反映对传播主体适当性的质疑。随着自动化传播普及,公众评判其正当性,可能如改变认知一样影响民主沟通质量。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

As AI-enabled systems become available for political campaign outreach, an important question has received little empirical attention: how do people evaluate the communicative practices these systems represent, and what consequences do those evaluations carry? Most research on AI-enabled persuasion examines attitude change under enforced exposure, leaving aside whether people regard AI-mediated outreach as legitimate or not. We address this gap with a preregistered 2x2 experiment conducted in the United States and United Kingdom (N = 1,800 per country) varying outreach intent (informational vs.~persuasive) and type of interaction partner (human vs.~AI-mediated) in the context of political issues that respondents consider highly important. We find consistent evidence for two evaluation penalties. A persuasion penalty emerges across nearly all outcomes in both countries: explicitly persuasive outreach is evaluated as less acceptable, more threatening to personal autonomy, less beneficial, and more damaging to organizational trust than informational outreach, consistent with reactance to perceived threats to attitudinal freedom. An AI penalty is consistent with a distinct mechanism: AI-mediated outreach triggers normative concerns about appropriate communicative agents, producing similarly negative evaluations across five outcomes in both countries. As automated outreach becomes more widespread, how people judge it may matter for democratic communication just as much as whether it changes minds.

AI伦理政治传播说服力公众信任

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