Artificial intelligence considerations extra Americans than it excites, though few assume the expertise could have a major affect on their jobs, in line with a pair of research launched Monday by a Washington, D.C. assume tank.
In an perspective survey of 11,201 U.S. adults, the Pew Research Center discovered that greater than half of Americans (52%) really feel extra involved than excited concerning the elevated use of synthetic intelligence. That’s 14 factors increased than in December 2022, when AI involved solely 38% of surveyed Americans.
“A 14-point movement in the span of eight months is a notable shift in public opinion,” Pew’s Associate Director of Research Alec Tyson informed TechNewsWorld.
Meanwhile, in an expertise research of 5,057 adults, Pew discovered that 5 out of eight Americans (63%) who’ve heard of ChatGPT consider generative AI chatbots could have a minor affect (36%) or no affect all (27%) on their jobs.
“The two surveys seem to offer contradictory findings,” mentioned Greg Sterling, co-founder of Near Media, a information, commentary, and evaluation web site.
“Most people don’t appear to be worried about their specific jobs, but Americans in general are worried about the broader impact of AI on society,” he informed TechNewsWorld.
“I think the concerns partly stem from a lack of understanding or a lack of control,” he mentioned. “AI has also been routinely portrayed in fiction and the movies as a malevolent influence.”
Bad Press
The media has additionally contributed to stoking concern about AI, maintained Rob Enderle, president and principal analyst on the Enderle Group, an advisory providers agency in Bend, Ore.
“It is the nature of news coverage to accentuate aspects of a product that create controversy,” he informed TechNewsWorld. “You make money from attention, and articles that talk about risks pull better than articles that talk about benefits.”
Daniel Castro, director of the Center for Data Innovation in Washington, D.C., a assume tank learning the intersection of knowledge, expertise, and public coverage, agreed.
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“Americans are concerned about AI because they mostly see negative headlines about the technology,” he informed TechNewsWorld. “Most of the policy conversations in Washington are about the risks of AI, not the benefits.”
“Even the White House has been trumpeting this message about AI risks from its meetings with AI companies to its AI Bill of Rights,” he mentioned. “It is also easy to imagine how things might go wrong. Indeed, many screenwriters and novelists have made careers out of imagining AI disasters.”
While it’s affordable for Americans to have considerations concerning the future, he continued, their considerations usually are not essentially primarily based on arduous information. “Typically, people’s concerns about technology dissipate as they become more familiar with it,” he mentioned.
Familiarity Breeds Concern
However, that doesn’t appear to be the case with AI. The rise in concern over the expertise has taken place alongside rising public consciousness about it, Pew famous. Nearly 9 in 10 adults have both heard quite a bit (33%) or a bit (56%) about AI.
“If you put those two figures together, about 90% of the public has heard of AI, which is a large share,” Tyson noticed.
“There’s been a seven-point increase in the share of the public who say they’ve heard a lot about AI, so public awareness is growing,” he added.
Castro acknowledged that Pew’s findings point out concern about AI is rising, not reducing, over time however attributes that pattern to modifications within the expertise.
“The reason these concerns are likely increasing is that what people consider AI has continued to change over the years,” he maintained. “So although the time period itself is previous, what individuals contemplate to be AI is new.
“Nobody was asking consumers what they thought about large language models a few years ago,” he mentioned. “When the survey asked consumers about AI in 2021, they were thinking about very different technologies.”
Privacy Threat
Pew famous that regardless of rising public concern over using synthetic intelligence in day by day life, opinions about its affect in particular areas had been a combined bag. For instance, 49% of respondents felt AI helps greater than hurts when individuals need to discover services they’re excited about on-line.
On the opposite hand, 53% of Americans consider AI does extra to harm than assist individuals maintain their private data non-public.
“AI in the context of privacy appears as a kind of supercharged extension of the ‘surveillance capitalism’ that has driven online profiling and personal data collection for the past 20 years,” Sterling mentioned.
“The underlying fear is that AI will make profiling and surveillance more powerful and invasive than they already are,” he continued. “Technologies like facial recognition are part of this.”
“Any tool can be misused,” added Enderle, “and AI tools are particularly effective at breaching security or tricking users into volunteering information they should keep private.”
More Chatbot Regulation Favored
Pew additionally discovered robust help for the federal government placing a leash on AI. Two-thirds (67%) of the survey topics with information of ChatGPT expressed concern that the federal government wouldn’t go far sufficient in regulating chatbot use.
That perspective was true for members of each political events within the pattern, though the priority was extra widespread amongst Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents (75%) than with Republicans (59%).
“Regulation must support individual privacy and protect against bias,” Sterling mentioned.
“All kinds of decision-making is being turned over to AI — hiring, health care, insurance, loans, housing,” he continued. “In such sensitive areas, we must ensure that humans remain in control, and people have recourse where they’ve been unfairly affected by AI determinations.”
“But that will be hard to enforce,” he admitted.
Castro maintained that solons can deal with considerations raised by AI with out focusing on legal guidelines on the expertise. “Passing a federal data protection law would address most privacy concerns,” he mentioned.
“Government needs to rapidly develop a core competence with generative AI,” Enderle added, “or they are likely to do more harm than good. Misunderstandings and ignorance could put the nation significantly behind China with regard to the effective use of this tool.”