Human Roles and Skills in AI-based Services
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10125/112432
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Item type: Item , Algorithmic Decision-Making in Public Services: Two Empirical Cases of Algorithmic Incompetence(2026-01-06) Akbarighatar, Pouria; Rinta-Kahila, Tapani; Someh, Ida AsadiAlgorithmic decision-making (ADM) is increasingly adopted in the public sector to support the delivery of social services. In this context, service workers play a critical role in ensuring service interactions remain human-centered, equitable, and responsive to the nuanced needs of each citizen. However, the nature of frontline work is being profoundly reshaped by ADM, along with the competencies required of service workers. This paper examines two public sector cases where ADM was introduced to facilitate service provision, but instead eroded critical competence and generated negative service experiences for many citizens. Drawing on perspectives from customer experience and employee mastery in service delivery, we examine how ADM disrupted service worker competence and the resulting implications for citizen experience. Our findings highlight the importance of preserving service workers' competence when designing and deploying ADM-driven public services.Item type: Item , “I want to talk to a human!” – Perceived Humanness Increases Satisfaction with an AI-driven Customer Service Chatbot(2026-01-06) Weckström, Eve; Pöyry, Essi; Parvinen, PetriCustomer service chatbots have massively benefitted from the introduction of generative artificial intelligence (AI) models. The technological leap provides companies an opportunity to increasingly serve customers with AI agents, focusing human resources to train, oversee and intervene AI-driven chatbot conversations instead of performing them in person. Nevertheless, customers might still prefer to speak with a human instead of an AI agent. This study compares the effect of AI and human-AI hybrid chat conversations on customer satisfaction. An experiment concerning 208 chat conversations in an online store reveals that customers were as satisfied with the AI- and human-AI hybrid conversations, regardless of the disclaimer used. However, in AI-driven conversations, perceived humanness of the customer service system mediated the relationship between the disclaimer and customer satisfaction − when less was told about the underlying technological system, customers were more satisfied because the service was perceived as more human.Item type: Item , Introduction to the Minitrack on Human Roles and Skills in AI-based Services(2026-01-06) Rinta-Kahila, Tapani; Tuunainen, Virpi; Lindman, Juho