Modelling trust in human-like technologies

Abstract

Trust is an important decision-making construct helping users to adopt and continually use a system. Despite its importance, past research has mainly focused on studying and researching it in technology mediated interactions. As nature of technical artifacts becomes increasingly intelligent and human-like, a theory for explaining and predicting trust in such artifacts also becomes important. However, studying trust relationship of a user with technical artifacts is still in its infancy. To address this, we build on prior work which empirically modelled trust in user technology interactions and evaluate a human computer trust model using partial-least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). Our research results identify four factors: competence, benevolence, willingness & reciprocity which impact user trust. Suggestions for future applications of the model are also discussed. Our study contributes to the literature by advancing the discussion on (a) human-like technologies and (b) the role of trust in human-artifact relationship.