Perceptions of AI-generated informational texts and effects of the source: An online experiment

Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming increasingly common for health information seeking, yet many people are still sceptical of its performance. This between-subjects online experiment tested whether informing readers that a text was produced by AI influenced their ratings in 774 participants. They were randomly assigned to reading one of six brief texts and rated trustworthiness, interest and perceived understanding as well as intention to act upon the received information and willingness to share the information with others. Source information did not influence ratings, but only 41.5% of participants in the AI source condition noticed the source. Source awareness was associated with higher education and greater nutrition knowledge. Nutrition information produced by AI chatbots is generally seen as trustworthy, although source information is often ignored. Our research highlights critical implications for public health messaging in the digital age as consumers may not differentiate between information generated by AI vs other sources.