AI Fortune-Teller: Juxtaposing Shaman and AI to Reveal Human Agency in the Age of AI
This work addresses the problem of human trust and agency in AI interactions, though it is incremental as it uses a speculative setup to provoke discussion rather than offering technical solutions.
The study investigated how participants reacted to career advice they believed came from an AI but was actually from a Korean shaman, finding that their attitudes toward the advice did not change after learning the truth, raising questions about AI explainability and accuracy.
This speculative video piece showcases participants interacting with a career counseling AI agent, unaware that the responses were actually derived from the fortunetelling of a mudang (a Korean traditional shaman). Our work captures this deception and documents participants' reactions, showcasing shifts in their initial perceptions of the agent's advice following the reveal. Notably, even after learning that the advice came from a mudang rather than an AI, participants did not change their initial attitudes toward the advice they received. This raises questions about the perceived importance of AI's explainability and accuracy. By juxtaposing scientific and pre-scientific approaches, we aim to provoke discussions on human agency in the age of AI. We argue that, regardless of AI's advancements, we continue to navigate life in fundamentally human ways -- wonderfully messy and uncertain.