Artificial intelligence (AI) can write text messages encouraging physical activity that most older adults consider appropriate and good quality, but their feelings about AI—and if they know AI wrote the message—impact their response, a recent study suggests.

The research is an important first step in helping health programs use AI to support large-scale behavior change, said lead author Allyson Tabaczynski, postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Michigan School of Kinesiology.

Tabaczynski and colleagues asked 630 adults ages 40+ to read 80 AI-written text messages designed to motivate people to move more and sit less. Participants flagged any messages for cultural insensitivity and overall quality.

Key takeaways:

• The results were encouraging. Of nearly 50,000 ratings, only about 5% were flagged as culturally insensitive and roughly 6% had quality problems.
• Knowing the texts were written by AI and feeling more positive about AI was linked to people flagging more messages as culturally insensitive.
• Messages that emphasized sitting less (compared to moving more) or that described preparing for activity (compared to performing physical activity) received more low-quality ratings.

The most interesting finding was that even people who liked AI didn't let it off the hook—even when they knew beforehand that AI wrote the prompt, Tabaczynski said.

"Initially, I thought this was a little counterintuitive," she said. However, she added, "If you have a more positive attitude toward AI, you might also just have more general knowledge of some of the biases or limitations that AI can have in its output or in its training data."

When participants raised quality issues, the problem typically wasn't overt offensiveness but relevance. Some messages simply didn't fit a person's lifestyle or might not fit someone else's culture—for instance, a message suggesting dancing ("I don't dance") or advising people to stand for their morning coffee ("I don't drink coffee").

Those responses, Tabaczynski said, suggest AI messaging may be broadly acceptable while still needing better tailoring to individuals.

To read the abstract for the study, published in The Journals of Gerontology Series B, click here