Who is Responsible, the Advisor or the AI? Understanding the Effects of Advisors Disclosing Their AI Use on Their Perceived Responsibility and AI Reliance

Human advisors increasingly have access to AI recommendations and use them to shape the advice they give clients, often without disclosing their AI use to their clients. Disclosure of AI use involves informing individuals when AI is being used on their behalf by another person, such as disclosing to clients that advisors are using AI to formulate their expert advice. Our study aims to investigate whether and how disclosing advisors' use of AI assistance to their clients influences the advisors' perceived responsibility for decisions and degree of AI reliance. Recruiting financial advisors to perform a personal finance advising simulation that manipulated whether clients would know that advisors used an AI system (disclosed vs. not disclosed), we found that financial advisors felt less responsible for their recommendations when they believed their use of AI assistance would be disclosed rather than undisclosed to clients. We also found that advisors’ perceived personal responsibility was higher when their reliance on AI was lower. Advisors’ perceived self-competence increased their perceived personal responsibility for investment decisions relative to AI, and their trust in AI decreased their perceived responsibility. We conclude by discussing how our findings can inform disclosure schemes for improved human-AI collaboration in advising.