Invitation and purpose

You are invited to take part in a research study at Carnegie Mellon University. You must be 18 or older, live in the United States, and be able to read English. Taking part is voluntary.

We are studying how people make choices when two goals for responsible or ethical artificial intelligence (AI) are in tension. For example, one AI design might support safety checks by keeping activity logs, while another might protect privacy by not keeping those logs. We want to learn which options people prefer, why they prefer them, and how choices change across different uses of AI. There are no right or wrong answers.

What you will do

You will review five short, fictional AI situations and then answer a few background questions. For each situation, you will choose between two possible versions, rate the choice, and briefly explain your reasoning. You will not interact with a live AI system, install software, turn on a camera or microphone, share your screen, or give us access to an account or device.

Choice, risks, and benefits

You may skip any question or stop at any time by closing the survey. There is no penalty for not taking part or stopping. Your choice will not affect your relationship with Carnegie Mellon University, your school, your employer, or any services or benefits.

Some situations involve privacy, monitoring, fairness, discrimination, health, work, public benefits, or safety. A difficult choice may cause mild, short-term discomfort, frustration, or fatigue. There is also a small risk that research information could be seen by someone who should not have access to it. There is no expected direct benefit to you.

Privacy and data use

We will not ask for your name, signature, home address, or other direct identifiers in the survey. Prolific gives us an ID for eligibility, duplicate prevention, and payment. We store that ID separately from survey answers and will delete it when it is no longer needed. Please do not include names or contact information in your written explanations.

Study data will be kept on password-protected, access-controlled systems. No participant response or identifier will be sent to a public generative-AI service. De-identified information may be used for this study and future research, reported in publications or talks, shared with other researchers, or placed in a research repository. We do not currently plan commercial use. Records will be kept for at least three years. Once data are de-identified, we may not be able to find or remove your individual answers.

Payment and quality checks

You will receive payment through Prolific. The survey includes two questions that check understanding of the situations. Strong evidence of an automated, duplicate, or fraudulent submission may lead to exclusion and may affect payment under Prolific’s rules. Someone who completes the study in good faith but whose answers are later excluded from analysis will normally keep payment.

Questions

For study questions, contact the principal investigator. For questions about your rights as a participant, contact the Carnegie Mellon University IRB at (412) 268-4721 or IRB-review@andrew.cmu.edu.