Advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) over the last decade demonstrate that machines can exhibit communicative behavior and influence how humans think, feel, and behave. In fact, the recent development of ChatGPT has shown that large language models (LLMs) can be leveraged to generate high-quality communication content at scale and across domains, suggesting that they will be increasingly used in practice. However, many questions remain about how knowing the source of the messages influences recipients' evaluation of and preference for AI-generated messages compared to human-generated messages. This paper investigated this topic in the context of vaping prevention messaging. In Study 1, which was pre-registered, we examined the influence of source disclosure on people's evaluation of AI-generated health prevention messages compared to human-generated messages. We found that source disclosure (i.e., labeling the source of a message as AI vs. human) significantly impacted the evaluation of the messages but did not significantly alter message rankings. In a follow-up study (Study 2), we examined how the influence of source disclosure may vary by the participants' negative attitudes towards AI. We found a significant moderating effect of negative attitudes towards AI on message evaluation, but not for message selection. However, for those with moderate levels of negative attitudes towards AI, source disclosure decreased the preference for AI-generated messages. Overall, the results of this series of studies showed a slight bias against AI-generated messages once the source was disclosed, adding to the emerging area of study that lies at the intersection of AI and communication.

翻译：过去十年人工智能的进步表明，机器能够展现交流行为并影响人类的思维、情感与行为。事实上，近期ChatGPT的发展表明，大型语言模型可用于跨领域大规模生成高质量交流内容，这意味着其实际应用将日益广泛。然而，关于信息源认知如何影响接收者对AI生成信息与人类生成信息的评价及偏好，仍存在诸多未解问题。本文以电子烟预防信息为研究情境探讨该主题。在研究1（已预先注册）中，我们考察了源披露对健康预防类AI生成信息（与人类生成信息对比）评价的影响。研究发现，源披露（即标注信息来源于AI或人类）显著影响信息评价，但未显著改变信息排序。在后续研究（研究2）中，我们探究了源披露的影响如何随参与者对AI的消极态度而变化。结果显示，对AI的消极态度对信息评价存在显著调节效应，但对信息选择无显著影响。然而，对于对AI持中度消极态度的群体，源披露降低了对AI生成信息的偏好。总体而言，本系列研究结果表明，一旦披露信息源，便存在细微的AI生成信息偏见，为人工智能与传播学交叉领域的新兴研究提供了补充。