Why Do Civil Servants Delegate Empathic Engagement with Clients to Artificial Intelligence Systems? Insights from a Discrete Choice Experiment

What factors lie behind bureaucrats’ readiness to delegate client interactions that commonly involve human empathy to artificial intelligence (AI) systems? Such delegation entails a crucial trade-off as it may reduce workload but simultanously introduces inauthentic empathic engagement in citizen-state relations, which may undermine the moral integrity of public administration (PA). Drawing on bureaucratic legitimacy theory, this study tests the impact of efficiency gains, AI features, and organizational norms on civil servants’ willingness to delegate citizen engagement to AI. Findings from a pre-registered discrete choice experiment conducted with 300 active German civil servants (Obs.=3,000) show that while efficiency gains and norms do have some impact, utilitarian considerations concerning AI’s ability to serve clients well are clearly the most important motivator. The findings show that the acceptability of delegating empathic engagement with citizens to AI can be tied to key dimensions of bureaucratic legitimacy, and provide novel evidence that AI use in PA is more strongly linked with public service motivation rather than self-serving efficiency gains. These insights advance theory and inform responsible and client-centered use of AI in public bureaucracies.