Department of International Finance, Poznań University of Economics and Business, Poznań, Poland.
ETH Zürich, Chair of Cognitive Science, Zürich, Switzerland.
PLoS One. 2020 Sep 17;15(9):e0239277. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0239277. eCollection 2020.
In five experiments (N = 3,828), we investigate whether people prefer investment decisions to be made by human investment managers rather than by algorithms ("robos"). In all of the studies we investigate morally controversial companies, as it is plausible that a preference for humans as investment managers becomes exacerbated in areas where machines are less competent, such as morality. In Study 1, participants rated the permissibility of an algorithm to autonomously exclude morally controversial stocks from investment portfolios as lower than if a human fund manager did the same; this finding was not different if participants were informed that such exclusions might be financially disadvantageous for them. In Study 2, we show that this robo-investment aversion manifests itself both when considering investment in controversial and non-controversial industries. In Study 3, our findings show that robo-investment aversion is also present when algorithms are given the autonomy to increase investment in controversial stocks. In Studies 4 and 5, we investigate choices between actual humans and an algorithm. In Study 4 -which was incentivized-participants show no robo-investment aversion, but are significantly less likely to choose machines as investment managers for controversial stocks. In contrast, in Study 5 robo-investment aversion is present, but it is not different across controversial and non-controversial stocks. Overall, our findings show a considerable mean effect size for robo-investment aversion (d = -0.39 [-0.45, -0.32]). This suggests that algorithm aversion extends to the financial realm, supporting the existence of a barrier for the adoption of innovative financial technologies (FinTech).
在五项实验中（N=3828），我们研究了人们是否更喜欢由人类投资经理而不是算法（“机器人”）做出投资决策。在所有研究中，我们都研究了道德上有争议的公司，因为在机器能力较弱的领域，例如道德领域，人们更喜欢人类作为投资经理的可能性会加剧。在研究 1 中，参与者对算法自主排除道德有争议的股票投资组合的可允许性的评价低于如果人类基金经理这样做；如果参与者被告知这种排除可能对他们的财务不利，那么这种发现并没有什么不同。在研究 2 中，我们表明这种机器人投资厌恶现象在考虑投资有争议和非争议行业时都表现出来。在研究 3 中，我们的研究结果表明，当算法被赋予自主增加对有争议股票的投资的自主权时，机器人投资厌恶也存在。在研究 4 和 5 中，我们调查了实际的人类和算法之间的选择。在研究 4（有激励措施）中，参与者没有表现出机器人投资厌恶，但他们不太可能选择机器作为有争议股票的投资经理。相比之下，在研究 5 中，机器人投资厌恶是存在的，但它在有争议和非争议股票之间没有差异。总的来说，我们的研究结果表明机器人投资厌恶的平均效应大小相当（d=-0.39[-0.45，-0.32]）。这表明算法厌恶扩展到金融领域，支持创新金融技术（FinTech）采用的障碍的存在。
