Investigating the negative bias towards artificial intelligence: effects of prior assignment of AI-authorship on the aesthetic appreciation of abstract paintings

Art, regarded as one of the last bulwarks of human prerogatives, is a valid model for investigating the relationship between humans and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Recent studies investigated the response to human-made vs. AI-made artworks, reporting evidence of either a negative bias towards the latter or no difference. Here, we investigated whether prior knowledge of authorship can influence the aesthetic appreciation of two abstract paintings by manipulating the preassignment of human- vs. AI-authorship. In the ecological setting of an art fair, participants were asked to explicitly rate their aesthetic appreciation, while psychophysiological measure - electrodermal activity (EDA) and heart rate (HR) - were recorded during the observation of the two paintings. Presentation order was balanced among participants and artworks. Results show that when the human-declared painting was shown as first, aesthetic judgement on the AI-declared painting were lower, while with the opposite presentation order judgements were equal. Furthermore, although no modulation of HR was found, EDA activation was always higher during the second presentation. In line with literature, the results showed that looking at abstract artworks reduces the negative bias towards AI. However, the negative bias still emerges when AI-artworks are implicitly compared to human-artworks. Implications are discussed.