Objective
General-purpose AI (GPAI) assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude—accessed through a single interface—help users debug code, draft press releases, obtain political news, summarize parliamentary debates, and seek educational advice. Unlike specialized tools that signal domain boundaries, this uniform design obscures cues about where competence ends, forcing users to judge trustworthiness across domains where performance varies widely. ABDICATE asks whether interface unity fosters epistemic abdication—the voluntary surrender of critical judgment, manifested as reduced skepticism and verification.
Building on my research on belief formation, attitude dynamics, and generalization, I hypothesize that interface unity masks competence differences and enables cross-domain trust spillover: trust earned in verifiable tasks (grammar fixes, working code) transfers inappropriately to domains where errors, biases, or value misalignment are hard to detect (political news, educational advice).
ABDICATE delivers formal theory, controlled experiments, multi-wave panels, and a field experiment to identify the causal effects of GPAI design features—interface unity, persistent memory, sycophancy, answer plurality, and source display—on verification, belief formation, and attitudes. Calibrated computational models reveal when these features yield accuracy-convergent consensus, manufactured consensus from homogeneous outputs, or polarized divergence as personalization amplifies priors.
With ChatGPT at 700M weekly users, Gemini at 450M monthly users, and persistent memory becoming standard, epistemic habits formed now will determine whether democratic deliberation retains the independent judgment it requires. ABDICATE will provide evidence-based recommendations on GPAI default settings—e.g. default persistent memory (ON/OFF)—and compliance tools that help preserve citizens’ epistemic autonomy before path dependence makes intervention costly.
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Keywords
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2025-ADG
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08002 Barcelona
Spain
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