Asking a generative AI to write a message to a loved one makes people feel guilty and feels dishonest

Even short messages sent to loved ones, such as Valentine's Day messages, thank-you emails, and birthday cards, are often perceived as 'thoughtful words.' Researchers led by West Virginia University in the United States have reported the results of a study that found that when a generative AI creates such messages, then copies and pastes them and sends them as if they were written by the sender, it increases the sender's own feelings of guilt.

AI Ghostwriting Remorse: Guilt for Using Generative AI in Interpersonal Heartfelt Messages
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cb.70057

Whether it's Valentine's Day notes or emails to loved ones, using AI to write leaves people feeling crummy about themselves
https://theconversation.com/whether-its-valentines-day-notes-or-emails-to-loved-ones-using-ai-to-write-leaves-people-feeling-crummy-about-themselves-271805

A research team including Julian Givi and Daniel Hass, who study marketing at West Virginia University, and Colleen P. Kirk of the New York Institute of Technology, investigated the psychological costs of using generative AI as a 'ghostwriter of personal messages.'

The research team conducted five experiments with hundreds of participants, asking them to imagine using a generative AI to prepare an emotional message to send to a loved one, and compared how they felt when using the AI versus writing it themselves. The results showed that in all cases, including thank-you emails, birthday cards, and love letters, participants tended to feel more guilty when the AI wrote the message.

In examining their results, the research team focused on the discrepancy between 'who created the words' and 'who appears to have created them.' When users copy and paste AI-generated text to sign, they end up sending words they didn't actually write to the recipient as 'words they wrote.' The research team calls this 'source-credit discrepancy,' explaining that it can lead to guilt when recipients are made to believe they put more effort and thought into the text than they actually did.

The researchers say this kind of discrepancy can also occur when a celebrity's social media posts are written by a public relations team or when a politician's speeches are prepared by a speechwriter.

Even when the message was written by someone other than the sender, people felt almost no guilt when they bought a greeting card with a pre-printed message. The research team explains that this is because the message on the card is pre-printed, making it clear to both the sender and the recipient that the message was not written by the sender, making it less likely to be a sneak attack.

On the other hand, when they also tried the case of 'having a friend secretly write the text,' the intensity of the guilt they felt was about the same as when the message was created using AI. The research team says that rather than whether the ghostwriter was human or AI, it's the fact that the words appear to the recipient as their own that leads to feelings of guilt.

However, if the message wasn't sent in the end, or if the recipient was an acquaintance rather than a close friend, the guilt tended to weaken. The research team explains that the more emotional honesty is valued in a relationship, the more guilty people feel when their expectations are not met.

The research team recommends using generative AI not for full ghostwriting but for 'idea generation and drafting,' and then ultimately translating the text into your own words. The team says it's important to use AI to refine the wording and then add elements that only you can write, such as specific events with the other person, making it a collaborative effort.