The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Consumers’ Identity and Human Skills

The development of artificial intelligence is one of the main paradigms of the contemporary society, which will radically change the existence of individuals and our society and it will have important effects on the economy. The use of artificial intelligence in the daily work of individuals and in the relationship between companies and consumers has a great number of advantages such as the increased efficiency, a high degree of fascination in interaction, but in the same time there are several fears related to its development in the future. Due to its great data storage capacity about the behavior of individuals and the processing speed of this data, there is a risk that the forms of artificial intelligence will become smarter than humans and thus intervene in the decisions made by them. Through the constant use of artificial intelligence, there is a high risk of manipulation of consumers as well as a high degree of dependence on intelligent technologies. This close relationship between the user and artificial intelligence can reduce an individual’s cognitive abilities and can affect their thinking, personality and relationships with its social circle. This paper presents a mediation model between the efficiency and fascination with artificial intelligence and the consumers’ perception of preserving their self-identity and human skills, having as mediator the influence and model of the social circle. The research results show that a higher degree of efficiency and fascination, as well as a positive influence from the social circle decrease the consumers’ perception of reduction of human skills in relation to artificial intelligence. Moreover, the social circle mediates the relationship between efficiency and fascination produced by artificial intelligence and the perception of preserving human abilities.