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Artificial intelligence (AI) is a growing topic of discussion and research due to the multitude of applications developed with its help and its multiple implications on human activity. The spectacular results of AI range from practical speech recognition, autonomous vehicles, and household information of things (IoT) to other human-AI interactions like automated translation, chatbots, or systems capable of creating realistic and artistic images from a description made in natural language (for example, Dall-E, Stable Diffusion, Imagen, and Midjourney). The approach is still predominantly oriented toward technology and algorithmic development (technology-centred approach); however, specialists predict that the focus will increasingly shift to aspects related to human computer interaction (Xu et al., 2021).
This research aims to obtain pertinent answers to the question: Do people intend to use AI for generating images for business purposes? First, a review of the specialized literature was carried out using established models and the acceptance of new technology. It also considered factors that determine why a person may use a certain technology. This was followed by identifying the way in which AI is used in business, aiming to identify the factors that determine future specialists to use AI for generating artistic images for business purposes. Through complex research, the subjects were first asked to use AI technology to create business images on a given theme (sustainable use of energy). Then, they were interviewed about their intentions with regards to using AI technology based on factors like performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, hedonic motivation, customer value, and habit from the UTAUT2 model. Additionally, the study considered potential moderators like age, gender, English-language experience, and subjects’ creativity.
The results of the analysis revealed a moderate to high value for the behavioural intention to use AI, showing that 69% of the variance can be attributed to determinant factors (e.g., perceived customer value, effort expectancy, facilitating conditions, habit, hedonic motivation, performance expectancy, social influence) and its moderators like creativity, knowledge of the English language, study domain, and gender. An interesting result regarding the way human-AI interaction is carried out is the ease of acceptance of this technology by those who are proficient in English given the fact that the software on which the image generation is based requires text in this language. Another result is related to the gender of the person interacting with AI. For instance, the effect of habit on behavioural intention is more pronounced for males in comparison with females. Finally, the most interesting result is related to creativity. In fact, the impact of effort expectancy over the behavioural intention is much stronger in cases of low creativity.
Starting from the mentioned premises, the article is structured in four parts. The first part is concerned with the analysis of the specialized literature regarding human-technology interaction and the role of AI in business. The second part investigates the research methodology. This is followed by a review of the results and discussions in the context of existing research. The final part includes conclusions, proposals, academic and practical implications, limitations, and future research directions.