When AI Copies and Consumers Feel Threatened: Moral Anger in AI Versus Human-Driven Intellectual Property Crises

As artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly enters creative roles, brands face intellectual property (IP) crises that blur responsibility. This research examines how AI-related threat perceptions shape consumers’ moral anger and behavioral responses when an IP crisis is attributed to AI rather than human actors. Study 1 tests how realistic and symbolic threats moderate the relationship between crisis source (human-caused vs. AI-caused) and moral anger. Study 2 extends the model by examining negative word-of-mouth (N-WOM) intentions and conditional indirect effects through moral anger. Results show that AI-caused crises elicit stronger moral anger than human-caused crises when realistic threat is high, whereas the opposite pattern emerges when symbolic threat is high. Under high realistic but low symbolic threat, AI-caused crises generate stronger moral anger and subsequent N-WOM intentions; this pattern reverses under high symbolic but low realistic threat. These findings demonstrate that AI-related threat perceptions shape responses to AI versus human-caused IP crises.