The Influence of Ethics Commitments and Audits on Public Trust in AI

Corporations increasingly pursue AI ethics commitments, ranging from AI principles to third-party audits. Prior scholarship on private governance suggests these commitments are intended to build consumer trust, minimize information asymmetries, and mitigate social, ethical, and organizational risks. This project closes the empirical gap on these strategies' effectiveness by evaluating whether corporate adoption of AI ethics commitments causally increases consumer trust and mitigates demand for state intervention. We will administer a survey with three experimental components to 3,000 participants in the U.S. and Germany. Study one assesses whether \textit{signaling} an organization's leadership via the adoption of AI ethics principles, \textit{investment} in responsible AI staff, or external \textit{accountability} efforts such as third-party audits enhances consumer trust. Study two and three involve an informational video and a choice-based conjoint design, respectively, to explore whether factors like the nature of the audit, the auditing organization, and characteristics of the audited company matter for consumers and if they depend on consumers’ knowledge about AI audits.