Numerous studies over the past few years have explored our willingness to trust new technologies, such as artificial intelligence.  It perhaps goes without saying that trust extends into many other parts of our life, so it should perhaps come as no surprise that the level of trust we have in our ordinary relationships extends to our trust in AI.

That’s the conclusion of new research from the University of Kansas, which finds that our trust in AI is strongly linked to our attachment style.  As such, those of us who are anxious in our relationships with humans are also likely to be insecure in our relationship with AI.

While the deployment and capabilities of AI have grown in recent years, there remain issues of trust in the technology among the general public.  The researchers believe their findings could point the way towards boosting our trust in technology.

Boosting trust

Attachment has been a central part of research into parent-child relationships for some time, but the research highlights how it also plays a role in our trust in AI.  In short, people with high attachment anxiety also have lower trust in the technology, so one way of boosting trust in AI could be to boost attachment security.

“Most research on trust in artificial intelligence focuses on cognitive ways to boost trust. Here we took a different approach by focusing on a ‘relational affective’ route to boost trust, seeing AI as a partner or a team member rather than a device,” the researchers explain.

“Finding associations between one’s attachment style — an individual difference representing the way people feel, think and behave in close relationships — and her trust in AI paves the way to new understandings and potentially new interventions to induce trust.”