"Bargaining with Robot vs. Human: An Experimental Study", Dr. King King LI , Associate Professor, The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong

Title: Bargaining with Robot vs. Human: An Experimental Study
Speaker: Dr. King King LI , Associate Professor, The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong
Date: May 12, 2025 (Monday)
Time: 14:00–15:00
Location: T7-106-R1

Abstract：

This seminar presents a recent experimental study that investigates whether individuals exhibit different bargaining behavior when negotiating with humans versus robots. In Study 1, participants engaged in an alternating-offer bargaining experiment with four distinct treatments: human vs. human, human vs. random robot, human vs. backward induction robot, and human vs. machine learning robot. Results show that human proposers were less altruistic when bargaining with robots. They were more likely to accept "unfair" offers from robots and less likely to accept fair offers from them due to gambling motivation. Human behavior was also sensitive to the strategy employed by the robot. Notably, the acceptance rate for offers from machine learning robots was statistically similar to that from human proposers. Study 2 allowed participants to choose whether to delegate the bargaining task to a machine learning robot. The study found no significant differences in offers made to human versus robot responders, nor in human responders' acceptance rates for offers from human versus robot proposers. This suggests that the robot was perceived as behaviorally equivalent to a human. However, most participants still preferred to bargain themselves, likely due to a preference for control.

Speaker Bio：

Li King King is an Experimental Economist. He is currently an associate professor at The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong. Previously, he was on the faculty of Shenzhen University, City University of Hong Kong, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, and postdoc with Werner Güth at Max Planck Institute of Economics in Germany. He received his PhD in Economics from HKUST with Chew Soo Hong as his advisor.

His research interests are in Experimental Economics, Behavioral Economics, and Behavioral Finance. He is the first to use Experimental Economics to study the effect of language on decision making (Li, 2017, Journal of Economic Psychology), memory recall biases (Li, 2013, Experimental Economics), and preference for randomization (Li, 2011, Journal of Risk and Uncertainty). His research has also investigated the crowding out effect in the labor market (Hossian and Li, 2014, Management Science).

Li is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, and a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, Frontiers in Behavioral Economics, and Applied Psychology: An International Review. Professor Li’s recent research topics include neutrality of money, investor behavior, and field experiments related to environmental protection and labor market discrimination.

Personal Website: Likklab.com