In spite of growing concern over the negative influence of gadgets on people’s daily life, humans are more likely to trust a computer program than their fellow men in certain situations.

People may be more willing to rely on algorithms than on “wisdom of the crowd”

According to a new research from data scientists at the University of Georgia, people may be more willing to rely on algorithms than on other people’s opinions, especially if a task becomes too challenging and machines are known to be good at it.

The number of tasks that algorithms can process rises constantly, so more and more of us are using computers to help make everyday decisions and organize our lives.

“It seems like there’s a bias towards leaning more heavily on algorithms as a task gets harder and that effect is stronger than the bias towards relying on advice from other people,” points out Eric Bogert, one of the authors of the study.

Bogert, together with management information systems professor Rick Watson and assistant professor Aaron Schecter recently released the paper titled, “Humans rely more on algorithms than social influence as a task becomes more difficult”. The results of their study were published in Nature’s Scientific Reports journal.

People may be more willing to rely on algorithms than on other people’s opinions, especially if a task becomes too challenging and machines are known to be good at it.

Let computers do the job

The study is a part of a larger body of work focusing on how and when people rely on algorithms to process information and make decisions. 1,500 individuals who took part in the study, had to evaluate photographs.

The team asked participants to count the number of people in a photograph of a crowd. Then they were given some suggestions that were generated either by a group of other people and or an algorithm. As the number of people in the pictures increased, counting became more challenging and volunteers were more willing to follow the suggestion generated by an algorithm rather than do the counting or rely on other people’s opinions.

The research team chose counting as the trial task because the number of people in the photo makes the task objectively harder as it expands. It is also that type of task that many people expect computers to be good at.

The team asked participants to count the number of people in a photograph of a crowd.

To trust or not to trust?

As we know, algorithms are also used in awarding credit or approving someone for loans.

As the whole procedure involves a lot of numbers like income and credit scores, people feel this is a good job for an algorithm.

“But we know that dependence leads to discriminatory practices in many cases because of social factors that aren’t considered,” professor Schecter pointed out.

For this reason facial recognition and hiring algorithms have come under scrutiny in recent years. The way they were built revealed a number of cultural biases.

“Those biases may not be present in a simple task like counting, but their presence in other trusted algorithms is a reason why it’s important to understand how people rely on algorithms when making decisions,” Schecter added.

So, would you rather trust a computer or someone’s advice? Or would you rather do the job yourself, even if it’s hard?

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