  Home assistant chat-bots, self-driving cars, drones or automated negotiations
are some of the several examples of autonomous (artificial) agents that have
pervaded our society. These agents enable the automation of multiple tasks,
saving time and (human) effort. However, their presence in social settings
raises the need for a better understanding of their effect on social
interactions and how they may be used to enhance cooperation towards the public
good, instead of hindering it. To this end, we present an experimental study of
human delegation to autonomous agents and hybrid human-agent interactions
centered on a public goods dilemma shaped by a collective risk. Our aim to
understand experimentally whether the presence of autonomous agents has a
positive or negative impact on social behaviour, fairness and cooperation in
such a dilemma. Our results show that cooperation increases when participants
delegate their actions to an artificial agent that plays on their behalf. Yet,
this positive effect is reduced when humans interact in hybrid human-agent
groups. Finally, we show that humans are biased towards agent behaviour,
assuming that they will contribute less to the collective effort.
