Biased AI improves human performance but reduces perceived helpfulness

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arXiv:2508.09297v4 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly shapes how people think, engage, and evaluate information. To minimize risk, most current systems are designed to present as ideologically neutral with standardized output. Yet growing evidence suggests that these principles suppress cognitive engagement, impair human decision-making, and erode societal diversity. Here we test the opposite approach by deliberately injecting bias into AI assistants. In three randomized experiments with 5,000 participants, biased AI improved human performance rela