AI Hallucination in Crisis Self-Rescue Scenarios: The Impact on AI Service Evaluation and the Mitigating Effect of Human Expert Advice

Generative artificial intelligence (GAI) technology is rapidly spreading across various fields. Although AI can generate creative ideas and useful information, it often produces misleading content, known as AI hallucination. AI hallucination may affect users’ evaluation of AI service in high-risk areas such as crisis self-rescue, and even pose a threat to their lives. How to determine the impact of AI hallucination on users AI service evaluation in crisis self-rescue scenarios and reduce the negative effects of AI hallucination has become an urgent research question. To address this issue, we designed a between-subject experiment using a fire self-rescue scenario as an example, with 2 (AI hallucination: high/low) × 2 (human expert advice: Yes/No), to explore the impact of AI hallucination on individual’s AI service evaluation. Based on the theory of resource conservation, we analyzed the impact mechanism of AI hallucination on AI service evaluation from both cognitive and emotional perspectives, and further proposed the moderating role of human expert advice in this impact and mechanism. The results indicate that AI hallucination has a significant negative impact on AI service evaluation. The degree of emotional relief and cognitive load mediate the impact between AI hallucination and AI service evaluation. Human expert advice significantly reduces the cognitive load caused by AI hallucination, alleviates users’ negative emotions, and mitigates the negative impact of AI hallucination on AI service evaluation. Our research contributes to the literature on AI hallucination and provides practical recommendation for effectively mitigating the negative impacts of AI hallucination.