The emerging application of algorithmic decision-making systems in public administration bears many challenges regarding fairness, opaqueness, and societal values. Especially the reduction or erasure of human decision-making in public e-services raises important questions, as citizens are used to being served by human public officials by default. Current research on AI and algorithmic decision-making shows that the use of algorithms also affects citizens’ perceptions of legitimacy. We applied a discrete-choice experiment to test if algorithmic decision-making influences citizens' preferences for public e-services of different quality and their respective legitimacy perceptions of the responsible public organization. The results from a sample of 1214 German citizens indicate that contrary to our expectations, there are no systematic differences in perceptions and preferences between citizens served by an algorithm and those granted a decision by a human bureaucrat. The results have implications for research on algorithmic decision-making in the public sector and public e-services. They demand further investigation into when and how citizens even care about the application of algorithmic decision systems in the public sector.
Dieser Eintrag ist Teil der Universitätsbibliographie.
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