Toward trust: The importance of algorithm transparency signaling in AI-assisted communication

This research project sheds light on the importance of building trust through algorithm transparency in artificial intelligence (AI) assisted communications. The widespread use of chatbot services has raised ethical issues including information asymmetry, communication credibility, and online security (Murtarelli et al., 2021). This project will explore how these issues may be due to the unique nature of AI technology, which has been exclusively shared by AI experts and organizations both intentionally and unintentionally. Rooted in signaling theory, we explore the effectiveness of disclosing AI algorithm as a transparency signal to mitigate these issues by transforming the public's calculus-based trust toward communication technology to identification-based trust toward an organization.