Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have ushered in a new era of consumer electronic (CE) devices: the voice-based CE devices (VCED's). A striking feature that separates these from other CE devices are their anthropomorphic capabilities. While current CE research has given a strong focus on improving various technical and security aspects of the VCED's, not much efforts have been given to explore their diffusion and acceptance in the society. However, if the CE community is to progress then there is an urgent need to view these systems from a sociotechnical perspective and take the user perceptions into account for further product development. In this work we propose a novel research framework by incorporating Human Computer Interaction (HCI) theories and Para Social Relationship Theory for exploring the effect of trust on the behavioral intention of users towards VCED's, keeping in mind their human-like attributes. Data is analyzed using a Structural Equation Modelling approach from 675 users of VCED devices from two Asian countries. Results show that the functional aspects of performance and effort expectancy, and social aspects of presence and cognition affect the trust factor. Privacy concerns do not affect trust. Overall, the results suggest that users treat VCED's as social objects employing social rules while interaction that indicates a dual nature of anthropomorphic systems. Suitable suggestions are provided for CE researchers for future research.
Keywords: Artificial intelligence; Consumer electronics; Intelligent social agent; Online survey; Privacy; Trust.
© 2022 The Authors.