Trust in Generative AI for Health Information Consumption and the Effect of Learned Dependency: An Experimental Study

This study investigates the impact of learned dependency on trust in AI-generated health information, revealing that increased dependency correlates with higher trust levels, even in the presence of inaccuracies. A randomized experiment with 338 participants demonstrated that while information accuracy enhances trust, visual attention cues do not significantly mitigate overtrust in incorrect outputs. These findings highlight the risks of overreliance on generative AI in health contexts, suggesting a need for improved trust calibration strategies among users.