When humble AI meets narcissistic customers: A terror management perspective

Abstract

The advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) has introduced unprecedented existential threats and social issues. This research integrates the understudied humility traits into AI assistants to mitigate the rising AI threat, exploring the interactions between AI humility, perceived AI threat, and customer narcissism on service satisfaction. Findings from the three-way interaction in a between-subjects quasi-experimental design reveal that under low AI threat, humble AI assistants enhance parasocial interaction and satisfaction, particularly for customers with low to moderate narcissism. Conversely, under high AI threat, these traits may be ineffective or counterproductive for such customers, while highly narcissistic individuals may still benefit. This research mainly contributes to the literature by extending humility to non-human entities to introduce a new coping with existential anxiety themed in terror management theory.