We warmly invite you to a CEAPS seminar will be held on Thursday (22.5.2025), with a presentation by Prof. Jerg Gutmann (University of Hamburg). The title of the presentation is “Can public data protection regimes mitigate users’ privacy concerns about AI? Evidence from a survey experiment”.
The seminar will take place at 17:00 in room B002 (Faculty of Economic Sciences).
Abstract: We examine the trade-off between functionality and data privacy inherent in many AI products by conducting a randomized survey experiment with 1,734 participants from the US and several European countries. Participants’ willingness to adopt a hypothetical, AI-enhanced app is measured under three sets of treatments: (i) installation defaults (opt-in vs. opt-out), (ii) salience of data privacy risks, and (iii) regulatory regimes with different levels of data protection. In addition, we study how the willingness to adopt depends on individual attitudes and preferences. We find no effect of defaults or salience, while a regulatory regime with stricter privacy protection increases the likelihood that the app is adopted. Finally, greater data privacy concerns, greater risk aversion, lower levels of trust, and greater skepticism toward AI are associated with a significantly lower willingness to adopt the app.