Citizen Trust in AI Regulatory Regimes in Four EU Countries

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Trust in artificial intelligence (AI) applications is deemed crucial for uptake of the technology and the development of an AI market. In the present article, we argue that the institutional design of regulatory regimes matters for whether citizens trust AI systems. We study how trust in AI systems depends on who the responsible regulator is, the scope of the regulator’s scrutiny of AI systems, and the involvement of external stakeholders in regulatory oversight. Based on a conjoint design, we examine how respondents value these institutional design choices for the case of high-risk AI systems used in health care. Using samples from Lithuania, Romania, Sweden, and the Netherlands, with 4001 respondents overall, the pre-registered experiment shows that citizens have more trust in AI systems if vendors, civil society and especially independent researchers are involved in oversight, and if regulators actively scrutinize AI systems rather than relying solely on self-reporting. At least in two countries, citizens also seem to have more trust in AI systems if the sectoral health care regulator is the responsible regulator instead of a cross-sectoral regulator such as the national Data Protection Authority or a specific AI regulator.