Thematics & GTAIM > Consumption and Artificial Intelligence Systems

Consumption and Artificial Intelligence Systems

If AI has long remained the prerogative of computer sciences, the AI systems developed today are at the heart of managerial and marketing issues as they are disrupting marketing processes and consumption patterns. Whether these AI systems are described as generative, predictive or conversational, they not only arouse science fiction fantasies, they are increasingly present in the daily lives of consumers and users by interfering in a way more or less transparent in their private sphere as in the public space: connected objects, sustainable city, sustainable consumption, behavior capture, disinformation, data protection...

This omnipresence leads us to ask many questions about how these systems are perceived, and how they can (and will) disrupt everyday life. Europe is developing legislative solutions and local authorities, like Montpellier in 2024, are organizing citizens' conventions to try to co-construct with their inhabitants the modes and conditions of their uses.

What is the perception of consumers regarding the rise of these technological innovations in their relations with companies? Should we imagine “sanctuaries without AI” (Pele, 2023)? What are the expectations, fears and conditions of social acceptability of consumers and users? What consumer values do they perceive in the capture and use of biometric data? In a world that wants to be responsible, sober and ethical, what are the societal implications of the deployment of AI systems?

The “Consumption and AI systems” track wishes to answer these various questions linking AI to consumption, the proposed contributions could address the following subjects:

1. Restrained digital consumption and frugal AI

•      Perception of digital pollution of NICTs by users (extraction, production, use, end of life)
•      Restrained digital consumption behavior
•      Communicate digital sobriety
•      Place of social networks and influencers in promoting sobriety
•      Design and distribution of “frugal artificial intelligence”

2. Consumption and consumer protection

•      Legislation, sanctuaries without AI, voluntary disconnection by consumers
•      Fair vs. unfair practices in terms of collection and use of personal data
•      Fair vs unfair or discriminatory practices in terms of the use of AI for commercial decisions (for example, for access to credit)
•      User perceptions of the ethics of using AI
•      Developments in cyberattacks/scams

3. AI representations and connected objects

•      Representations of AI by consumers, representations conveyed by stories
•      Acceptability and adoption of AI
•      Anthropomorphization of connected objects and human-machine relationships
•      Impacts of connected objects in the daily lives of consumers

4. Recommendations by AI systems:

•      Consumers and self-quantification through the data collected,
•      Recommendations for responsible behavior (connected objects)
•      Users’ feeling and perception of control in their relationships with AI

5. The Smart City

•      AI, a decision support tool and the performance of public policies
•      Use of AI in public space
•      Discourses and representations of the smart city

References

Pele A. (2023), What if we created sanctuaries without AI?, The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/et-si-on-creait-des-sanctuaires-sans-ia-208501

Track managers

Angélique Rodhain (angelique.rodhain@umontpellier.fr)

Pauline Folcher (pauline.folcher@umontpellier.fr)

Eric Remy (eric.remy@univ-perp.fr)

Bernard Fallery (bernard.fallery@umontpellier.fr)