The transparency dilemma: How AI disclosure erodes trust
Schilke and Reimann report thirteen experiments in which actors who disclose their use of AI are trusted less than actors who do not. They attribute the penalty to lower perceived legitimacy; it persists across disclosure framings and when disclosure is voluntary, is weaker than the penalty from third-party exposure, and is smaller but not absent among evaluators with favourable attitudes to technology. They conclude that transparency is not always beneficial for trust. SSRN preprint, 2025; a later PsyArXiv version is dated 2026.
Schilke and Reimann report thirteen experiments in which actors who disclose their use of AI are trusted less than actors who do not. They attribute the penalty to lower perceived legitimacy; it persists across disclosure framings and when disclosure is voluntary, is weaker than the penalty from third-party exposure, and is smaller but not absent among evaluators with favourable attitudes to technology. They conclude that transparency is not always beneficial for trust. SSRN preprint, 2025; a later PsyArXiv version is dated 2026.
Written from the abstract from the Crossref preprint record and bibliographic details from Crossref and OpenAlex, 2026-11-03; full text not read; preprint, no journal version verified.
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SSRN preprint. doi:10.2139/ssrn.5205850 https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5205850