Should My Agent Lie for Me? Public Moral Perspectives on Deceptive AI

Artificial Intelligence (AI) advancements might deliver autonomous agents capable of human-like deception. Such capabilities have mostly been negatively perceived in HCI design, as they can have serious ethical implications. However, AI deception might be beneficial in some situations. Previous research has shown that machines designed with some level of dishonesty can elicit increased cooperation with humans. This raises several questions: Are there future-of-work situations where deception by machines can be an acceptable behaviour? Is this different from human deceptive behaviour? How does AI deception influence human trust and the adoption of deceptive machines? In this paper, we describe the results of a user study published in the proceedings of AAMAS 2023. The study answered these questions by considering different contexts and job roles. Here, we contextualise the results of the study by proposing ways forward to achieve a framework for developing Deceptive AI responsibly. We provide insights and lessons that will be crucial in understanding what factors shape the social attitudes and adoption of AI systems that may be required to exhibit dishonest behaviour as part of their jobs.