Most AI users say they should verify chatbot answers, yet many do so only sometimes or less often, according to a survey by cybersecurity company F-Secure .
The survey of 1,500 AI users in the U.S. and U.K. found that nearly 90% said they were responsible for verifying AI answers, yet 70% said they checked them only sometimes, rarely, or never.
"Consumers are busy and have complex, messy lives," explained F-Secure Vice President of Research Laura James.
"They make tradeoffs every day around what digital tools to use and for what," she told TechNewsWorld. "AI is no different."
AI can be very helpful, but it has its challenges, such as hallucinations or low-quality answers, she continued. "Consumers use it knowing these issues exist, as a pragmatic choice, prioritizing getting things done," she said.
"They know that the answers cannot always be trusted," she noted, "but the alternative for them in the moment is worse."
"It can be quite hard to check things out," she maintained, "as search engines don't always work well and other information sources are paywalled."
She added that consumers are turning to chatbots with questions they cannot get answered in other ways, such as medical advice that may be too expensive or slow to access.
One reason AI users skip vetting answers is it defeats part of the reason people use AI in the first place: speed, asserted Eric Turney, president of The Monterey Company , a custom branded merchandise company in Bend, Ore.
"If AI gives you an answer in 15 seconds but properly checking it takes another 10 minutes, people naturally start taking shortcuts," he told TechNewsWorld.
The gap between "talking the talk" and "walking the walk" discovered by F-Secure's researchers isn't limited to the use of AI. "For example, there is almost always a gap between the people who claim 'they should eat healthier' and their food choices," observed Juan Londoño, a policy analyst with the Cato Institute , a Washington, D.C. think tank.
The gap in the F-Secure survey can happen for various reasons, but one of them is the effort involved in fact-checking, he continued.
"Sometimes people are looking for a quick answer, and they do not think they should invest the time to confirm," he told TechNewsWorld.
"When an individual is not very knowledgeable about a certain topic, it can be hard to identify what has to be fact-checked," he said. "We saw this trend on social media, where people did not even realize they had to question the content they were presented with."
"I see that temptation myself," he admitted. "The more useful AI becomes, the easier it is to move from 'help me research this' to 'just give me the answer.'"
Greg Sterling, co-founder of Near Media , a market research firm in San Francisco, pointed out that users are becoming more sophisticated about AI. "That may account for some of the reduced fact-checking," he told TechNewsWorld.
"Laziness or complacency could be another explanation," he continued, "but it really depends on the situation. No generalization is going to be fully explanatory."
Nearly half of the AI users surveyed (47.3%) said they stop questioning an answer if it sounds right — more than twice the share who gave any other reason for not verifying a response.
"AI can give a wrong answer in clear, confident language, and that confidence can make the answer feel credible," noted Mark N. Vena, president and principal analyst at SmartTech Research , a technology advisory firm in Las Vegas…