Tech Giants Under Fire: Exploring Public Sentiment Towards AI and Calls for Regulation

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1:03members of both the Republican and Democratic, as the two major parties in the U.S., have expressed their concerns about the risks associated with AI. So I think there's kind of this broad appeal for federal intervention to kind of mitigate some of these risks. A lot of people are interested in that. And I'm not saying whether that's good or bad. I'm just saying I hear that a lot. And I think in a recent poll by a newly formed Artificial Intelligence Policy Institute, um this data has been you know shared with a number of different organizations in particular Axios reported on it and so there was a couple of really interesting little stats I wanted to cover so something that I thought was interesting if we're kind of diving a little bit deeper into the numbers the data actually shows that there is a big preference among respondents um of this survey for federal oversight of AI rather than just letting tech companies kind of police themselves This is kind of interesting, and it's interesting because I hear two different perspectives on this, especially when you're talking about politics.

2:05I feel like you'll see liberals and progressives talking about the fact that there is different biases in these AI models that they're worried are going to harm people or perpetrate harmful biases, and so they would like the government to actually help enforce the regulation to avoid those. That's what I'm hearing from that side. And then from the Republican GOP side of things, I'm hearing them talking about the fact that they feel like these AI models have biases towards liberal ideologies, and they're worried that there's not a neutral, unbiased approach. They're worried that their perspectives are not being reflected in these AI models.

2:44And so it's kind of interesting because it's, you know, essentially there's different complaints, but they're from two different sides of things. That's what I'm hearing. So according to their surveys, an overwhelming 82 % expressed their skepticism saying they didn't place their trust in tech executives to adequately regulate AI. And this is kind of interesting that we're seeing both sides of the aisle, people from, you know, all walks of life in the United States, essentially not trusting the tech companies and wanting the government to come in and regulate it. And it's interesting because, you know, they would like it to be regulated in different ways.

3:18But I think there's kind of this broad distrust. We're seeing that, right? 82 % skepticism and distrust for tech executives as essentially people are believing they're not going to do what they would, you know, what they're saying they will do or what they think they should do. So I think another statistic came out that said more than half, I think around 56 % of people surveyed are in favor of a designated federal agency taking charge of AI regulation. And only 14 % actually opposed such a move. And I think this is also very interesting. This is not surprising in any way to me that there is, you know, a bunch of people saying we need a special AI agency.

3:56I think the big concern probably both from the left and the right is the fact that the government is not traditionally very tech savvy. You know, like just getting some random person from the government to be in charge of AI. You know, for example, like let's say you got your vice president and just said, Kamala Harris, you're in charge of AI, which I think we did. it doesn't give a lot of confidence to the voter considering Kamala Harris has no experience in you know or background in AI and you know what that entails and it's kind of embarrassing sometimes when she talks about it now I'm not saying if Kamala Harris is a good or bad person but you know like let's be pragmatic let's look at her track record she has a track record with AI therefore a lot of people are skeptical about her being in charge of AI I don't think that's too controversial to say.

4:45What I will say in regard to that is I think it's really big to see only 14 % of people opposing a specific agency for AI, right? I think their concern is that it's going to get thrown out to the vice president or to some members of Congress, or there's going to be a panel of people that aren't experts on this, and they don't want that. They say, let's just make an agency that specializes in this, that knows the problems, that knows the pros and cons, and that can regulate it according to that. I tend to kind of agree with that approach, and it would appear that a majority of Americans do, and a majority of Americans are not, you know, opposed to that.

5:22So I think that that is kind of interesting. So I think, you know, some of the significance of the findings here, finding, you know, common ground on policy matters is really hard to do in today's day and age. American politics is incredibly divided. It's very polarized. and I think that you know a really strong endorsement of fresh federal mandates is very hard to find from the right or the left and so I think that you know this new poll kind of sheds some light on these essentially the gradually diminishing trust that we have in the tech giants people aren't feel are not very trustworthy from from any perspective of tech giants and what they're doing and they have a lot of skepticism that they're you know doing what's in their best interest because in at the end of the day um you know that's they have a board of directors they have a fiduciary responsibility to their own company and not necessarily to the american people so i think we're kind of unpacking the data there was around a thousand and one participants surveyed this was between july 18th and 21st so relatively recently um and another interesting statistic from this is that 62 percent of people expressed varying degrees of concern over ai well only 21 % indicated they were somewhat or largely excited by it.

6:38So I think this is interesting, like a pretty strong majority has concerns, and a small minority is just purely excited, right? I think there was a lot of pure excitement and hype at the beginning, but as we start to kind of see its limitations of what it does, and it becomes, you know, less of this wow factor, now people are starting to say, well, I do have some concerns about X, Y, and Z. So a massive 72 % are in favor of a more measured pace of AI development, contrasted with 8 % that are advocating for acceleration. So this is, again, very interesting, right? Usually when there's technology, everyone's like, you know, I wish this iPhone was twice as fast, twice as thin, and could do X, Y, and Z extra things.

7:20Let's accelerate the, you know, let's accelerate the technology here. Like, that would be something that I would expect to hear. But when the implications of AI are so vast, I think people really are quite cautious and want to take a very measured approach with it, which I think is wise and something that, you know, we are sort of seen in some ways, but in others, we definitely are far from that. So I think there is a shared sentiment among around three quarters of both Democrats and Republican respondents that they think there is the potential existential threat AI could pose to humanity. So that is also very interesting.

7:56and a staggering 86 % of survey respondents said that AI might inadvertently trigger a catastrophic incident. So like that is close to 90%. Pretty much everyone agrees that there is a potential that AI triggers a catastrophic incident. And I mean, if you look at the rate that AI is getting integrated into the enterprise, into healthcare, into the military, into all different sectors, and if we've seen the capabilities it has, you know, it is something that a lot of people are worried about. So if we kind of move to kind of global sentiments on AI regulation, US adults are not isolated in their preference for a more regulated AI landscape over, you know, just kind of like a laissez-faire approach.

8:41So an international study on AI actually came from KPMG earlier in February, and it found that out of 17 major nations, a majority, which is 71%, agreed on a necessity for AI regulation. The UK is also kind of weighing in on the debate, while many are very optimistic about AI's potential benefits, like expedited airport procedures and enhanced cancer detection. I think a concurrent survey revealed that 62 % of British adults advocate for established laws governing AI use. But there are a few different caveats to consider here. So I think, you know, this kind of widespread endorsement for AI regulation doesn't automatically translate to faith in democratic governments to craft effective regulations.

9:29In the KPMG report, there is plenty of skepticism. I think there was only 49 % of US, 47 % of Japan, and 45 % of the UK respondents expressed confidence in their respective government's ability to oversee ai right so that is less than 50 percent in all of those major countries and you can contrast that um to higher trust levels that were recorded in china 86 percent of chinese respondents said they trusted their government 70 percent from india and 60 from singapore now that i would say is uh again a very um a very interesting report right so let's let's break down China, for example. China, as we know, the respondents there likely had the government.

10:16They know that the government can see what they're doing. So do you think that asking a Chinese citizen who's being actively spied on or watched by their government, if they trust their government to do something, would say yes or no? So there's definitely a big conflict there. India, though, I think is probably not going to experience that same conflict, and they probably genuinely have trust in their government. Now, one thing I will say about India, though the caveat there is that um i believe their their prime minister modi if you look at the statistics of approval ratings by country modi i think has the highest approval rating of any elected uh government official in the world and so you know maybe that is a reason why uh people there have trust that he's going to make the right move um i don't know too much about his policies or politics but just from like data i see he is the most uh he has the highest approval rating maybe there's caveats there people from india can let me know so that may also impact that singapore 16 i don't have much to say about that but i think despite a lot of lowering trust levels in recent times i think americans continue to kind of have an overall positive perception of technology as underscored by edelman's annual trust barometer report that actually came out to say Americans generally trust technology.

11:35So Daniel Coulson, who is the executive director of the Artificial Intelligence Policy Institute, which advocates a more kind of circumspect approach to AI rollout, said to Axios recently, quote, Americans are wary about the next stages of AI and want policymakers to step in to develop it responsibly. So I think it's going to be really interesting to see where this goes, to see what kind of policy is rolled out, and to see who is in charge of it definitely something we'll be following very closely in the future