How Using Artificial Intelligence in Public Administration Shifts Citizens’ Expectations of Street-Level Bureaucracy

This paper examines the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on citizens' expectations of street-level bureaucrats. Using survey experiments fielded in The Norwegian Citizen Panel, we assess how AI's role as a decision-support tool affects the importance citizens place on various bureaucratic traits. Our findings suggest that when street-level bureaucrats use AI, citizens will sometimes want bureaucrats that are more similar to themselves, and also tend to consider bureaucrats' technical expertise as less important. This suggests that as AI takes on more of the technical judgments that is part of bureaucratic decision-making, citizens place greater importance on the human elements of bureaucracy, such as shared experiences and empathy. This research highlights the growing need to understand how the use of AI will shift citizens' expectations of public institutions.