REPAIR workshop (https://www.repair-research.fi/home-en)
Recent artificial intelligence (AI) developments provide high potential for value creation yet simultaneously high risks for individuals, organizations, and societies. The higher agency and lack of transparency differentiate AI from other technologies (Berente et al., 2019). The current discourse on AI is divided into optimistic visions for AI as an unforeseen tool for productivity, science, and learning to doomsday visions of singularity, where AI's unpredictable and uncontrollable development leads to overtaking humanity. Nevertheless, both camps agree on maintaining and building societal trust.
Trust is a fundamental characteristic of individual, organizational, and societal well-being. It is also a multi-level phenomenon where different levels of trust affect each other (Fulmer & Gelfand, 2012). Within the organizational context, trust is "a psychological state comprising the intention to accept vulnerability based upon positive expectations of the intentions or behavior of another" (Rousseau et al., 1998, p. 395). Later also, non-human referents were added, and trust in technology has been defined as "situations…where one has to make oneself vulnerable by relying on another person or object, regardless of the trust object's will or volition" (McKnight et al. 2011; Lankton et al. 2015). In developing and piloting AI-based applications, stakeholders evaluate trust cues across referents and levels (van der Werff et al., 2021)
Among the OECD countries, trust in institutions and generalized others has been highest in Finland (OECD, 2021). Among other Nordic countries, Finland is an exception worldwide, where most citizens distrust institutions such as the media and politicians (Edelman, 2022). Thus, Finland may be most to lose if the AI-enabled deep fakes, misinformation, and manipulation deteriorate the society's fabric of trust. At the same time, Finland can gain many potential benefits from AI. The aging population and related increasing social and healthcare costs endanger the Nordic welfare society, and despite the investments in digitalization, productivity remains lower than in Sweden and Germany. Thus, despite the high risks, there is also high interest in how AI could be adopted for increased efficiency and effectiveness.
Thus, this workshop asks How can we maintain individual, organizational, and national trust to benefit from advanced technologies such as AI yet mitigate the risks and related harms?
REFERENCES:
- Berente, N., Gu, B., Recker, J., & Santhanam, R. (2019). Managing AI. MIS Quarterly, 1-5.
- Edelmann Trust barometer (2022). https://www.edelman.com/trust/2022-trust-barometer.
- Fulmer, C. A., & Gelfand, M. J. (2012). At what level (and in whom) we trust: Trust across multiple organizational levels. Journal of Management, 38(4), 1167-1230.
- Lankton, N. K., McKnight, D. H., & Tripp, J. (2015). Technology, Humanness, and Trust: Rethinking Trust in Technology. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 16(10), 880-918.
- Mcknight, D. H., Carter, M., Thatcher, J. B., & Clay, P. F. (2011). Trust in a specific technology: An investigation of its components and measures. ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems (TMIS), 2(2), 1-25.
- OECD (2021), Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions in Finland, Building Trust in Public Institutions, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://www.oecd.org/gov/drivers-of-trust-in-public-institutions-in-fin…
- Rousseau, D. M., Sitkin, S. B., Burt, R. S., & Camerer, C. (1998). Not so different after all: A cross-discipline view of trust. Academy of Management Review, 23(3), 393-404.
- van der Werff, L., Blomqvist, K., & Koskinen, S. (2021). Trust Cues in Artificial Intelligence: A Multilevel Case Study in a Service Organization. In Understanding Trust in Organizations (pp. 307-333). Routledge.
TIME AND PLACE
Monday, June 19th, 2023, 13-16
University of Helsinki (Metsätalo) Room 10, Unioninkatu 40.
AGENDA
13.00 – Welcome & introductions, Kirsimarja Blomqvist, LUT Business School
13.15 – Philosophical underpinnings of trust, Pekka Mäkelä & Raul Hakli, Helsinki University
13.30 – Individual vulnerability and AI – an employee perspective, Simon Schafheitle, University of Twente
13.45 – Organizational design for AI, Case Data Ethics Decision Aid (DEDA), Mirko Schäfer, Utrecht University
14.00 – Societal collaboration for AI, Case National expert committee on AI & digitalization, Anna-Mari Rusanen, Minister of Finance and Helsinki University
14.15 – Group discussions How can we maintain and build individual, organizational, and national trust to benefit from AI?
15.45 – Conclusions and next steps, Kirsimarja Blomqvist, LUT Business School
MORE INFORMATION
Kirsimarja Blomqvist, kirsimarja.blomqvist@lut.fi, +358 40 755 1693.
ENROLLMENTS
Hanna Myllyniemi, hanna.myllyniemi@helsinki.fi