Who guards the guards with AI-driven robots? The ethicalness and cognitive neutralization of police violence following AI-robot advice

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

  • Lisa Hohensinn
  • Jurgen Willems
  • Meikel Soliman
  • Dieter Vanderelst
  • Jonathan Stoll

We investigate whether the perceived ethicalness of police actions changes when police follow an AI-robot’s advice. We assess whether perceived ethicalness of police violence is higher when police follow robot advice to arrest a passer-by, compared to no robot advice to arrest the passer-by. Using neutralization theory, we test how blame-shifting occurs. When police violently arrest an innocent passer-by, the violence is neutralized when the decision was made following the AI-robot. Perceived ethicalness of police violence is higher when the passer-by is a terrorist, and police violence against a passer-by is neutralized through ‘denial of victim’ and ‘denial of injury’.

Original languageEnglish
JournalPublic Management Review
Pages (from-to)1-25
Number of pages25
ISSN1471-9037
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 17.10.2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

    Research areas

  • Artificial intelligence, perceived ethicalness, police use of force, service robots, survey experiments