Americans Are Getting Less Trustful of Artificial Intelligence

0:00Today on the AI Breakdown, we're looking at survey results that suggest that Americans are getting less rather than more trusting of artificial intelligence. The AI Breakdown is a daily podcast and video about the most important news and discussions in AI. Go to breakdown.network for more information about our Discord, our YouTube channel, and our newsletter.

0:24Welcome back to the AI Breakdown. Today for this Sunday show, I thought it would be a fun idea to aggregate a number of different polls that have come out recently that have a lot of information about what Americans think about AI, what specific industries think about AI. And then from there, we're going to have a little conversation about how much this opinion is natural versus being shaped by the media itself. All right, so let's start with this big banner poll. This was released Tuesday and is a Mitre Harris poll that is the second of a series of polls on AI trends, with the first conducted back in November 2022.

1:00This newer poll was conducted in July 2023, so not immediate, but also not that long ago. So the banner headline was that 54 % of the more than 2 ,000 adults surveyed were more concerned about the risks of AI than they were about the potential benefits. 39 % of adults said that they believe that today's AI technologies are safe and secure, which notably is down 9 % from November 2022. When it comes to what people are actually concerned about, there are some interesting insights as well. 80 % of people are concerned about AI being used in malicious cyber attacks. 78 % are worried about it being used for identity theft.

1:3576 % are worried about it being used to harvest and sell personal data. 74 % are worried about it being used to create deceptive political ads. 66 % are concerned about the quote unfair distribution of AI causing harm to disadvantaged populations. And 52 % are concerned about AI replacing them at their jobs. It's interesting to me that AI job loss is so low down this list. At the same time, I think that to some extent these numbers also correspond with how likely these things are to happen. I think people have strong assumptions that AI will be used in cyber attacks because everything else already is.

2:07I think people have strong assumptions that AI will be used to harvest personal data because that's what big tech companies already do. My guess is that people already believe as well that most political ads are deceptive, so why wouldn't AI be used to create even more deceptive ads, which leaves that 52 % of people who are being worried about being replaced by AI may be also representing the percentage of people who think that AI has the capacity to actually do that. The other thing I think when I take a step back is that if you didn't see all of these other numbers, having more than half of adults be worried that they were going to be replaced by a particular technology would be quite concerning all on its own.

2:40Another interesting detail that you might expect is that there was a pretty significant generational difference. 57 % of Gen Z and 62 % of millennials said that they are more excited than concerned. Contrast that with just 30 % of boomers who are more excited than concerned, and 42 % of Gen Xers. These percentages are pretty consistent with the percentages of people who are willing to use AI to perform everyday tasks. Gen Z and millennials both had over half of respondents be willing to use AI to perform tasks, with boomers and Gen Xers having less than 40 % willing. Overall, especially when compared with November, the story is one of declining rather than increasing trust.

3:16Another example of this is that 64 % believe that the primary purpose of AI is to assist, enhance, and empower consumers, which is down 7 % from the last survey, and less than half of people, only 46%, believe AI is ready for mission-critical applications for defense and national security, which is down 8%. There also appears to be strong bipartisan support for efforts to make AI more safe and secure. 85 % support a nationwide effort across government, industry, and academia to make AI more safe, which includes 82 % of Republicans, 85 % of independents, and 87 % of Democrats. Now that gets us to another study which has some fairly similar results.

3:54This poll was commissioned by the new think tank AI Policy Institute and conducted by YouGov and surveyed 1 ,100 Americans earlier this month. So some of the highlight findings from this poll, 63 % of voters say regulation should aim to actively prevent AI superintelligence or AGI. 73 % of voters believe AI companies should be held liable for harms from technology. 65 % of voters said that we should prioritize keeping AI out of the hands of bad actors, compared to 22 % who prioritize providing benefits to everyone. 73 % want to restrict Chinese companies' access to cloud compute from US companies.

4:27And 46 % of voters prefer on addressing powerful unknown threats over weaker known near-term threats. Now, the caveat with this one is that the Artificial Intelligence Policy Institute has a very clear mission. They call it a think tank founded to advocate for ethical oversight of AI for mitigating potential catastrophic risks posed by AI. AIPI's core mission is to demonstrate that the general public has valid concerns about the future of AI and is looking for regulation and guidance from their elected representatives. Now, I think this is an important conversation to be having, and I think that it's good that there are more organizations like this one being funded, because obviously the big tech companies have plenty of money to go around to try to influence public opinion on their side.

5:06I do think there is an interesting question of how much American attitudes currently about AI are native and inborn, or come from a lot of considered reasoning, versus how much are reflecting the extent to which the headlines for the last six months or so have been all about existential risk and doom and gloom. Maybe even if it is an opinion shaped by the media, that's a good thing, based on your take around what should happen next when it comes to AI policy, but I still think it's a pretty open question. Now, one other survey that validates some of the concerns that we heard in those two came from marketing operations consultancy Algo Marketing, who surveyed 300 global marketing leaders working in firms with 10 ,000 or more people.

5:4577.5 % of firms that were asked in that survey said that they had been forced to delay implementation of AI due to concerns about bias and fairness. Now, on the flip side, there have also been some survey results that show a little bit more excitement as well. Center for Connected Medicine has released its annual Top of Mind for Top Health Systems survey, and they say that, quote, While AI has ranked highly in past Top of Mind surveys, it was overwhelmingly cited in 2023 as the most exciting emerging technology, and it displaced virtual care as the technology seeing the most progress. 63 of 79 respondents listed AI as the most exciting emerging technology in healthcare.

6:21Over in the world of finance, according to research commissioned by SaaS accountancy provider AccountsIQ, 23 % of senior finance professionals are worried that AI could take their jobs, but that isn't stopping them from actually implementing the tools. 24 % say that they're underway with onboarding AI technology, and 51 % plan to in the next 12 months. Over in the world of education, learning platform Instructure, working with research firm JustCool, found that over 1 ,000 respondents that include students, educators, and administrators from K-12 and higher ed, sentiment is more positive than negative.

6:5454.5 % of teachers, students, and administrators feel either positive or very positive about AI, with 29.9 % staying neutral. The biggest risk they identify is cheating in the classroom. Said Ryan Lufkin, vice president of Global Strategy at Instructure, The results of this survey show the majority of educators and students are beginning to see the benefits of generative AI in a classroom setting. Used correctly, this technology can elevate student success, empower educators, and enhance the ways we teach and learn. When implemented with an intentional, secure, and human-driven approach, generative AI has the power to save educators time and promote impactful learning experiences for all.

7:29Finally, speaking of people being replaced by AI, according to a poll from online education platform edX, among hundreds of CEOs surveyed, 49 % said that AI could replace most or all of their own role, and 47 % said that might be a good thing. A couple other interesting notes from that study. One, CEOs are definitely concerned about falling behind. 79 % fear that if they don't learn how to use AI, they'll be unprepared for the future of work. 82 % said that people who are skilled at using AI should be paid more. And 74 % said that they should be promoted more often. And really interestingly, 82 % of the C-suite said that employees should be allowed to use AI to work multiple jobs.

8:07Overall, executives estimate that nearly half of the skills that exist in their workforce today will not be relevant by 2025 and think that 47 % of their workforce is unprepared for the future of work. So some really interesting stuff. And why I think it's worth spending a little bit of time on these numbers is that obviously they all present just a snapshot. And I think that more than a lot of different types of surveys, the results of surveys around AI right now might be particularly subject to changes in the sample that the survey results come from. Still, I think it's clear that the subtext of all of these is a recognition that AI is a real force and has become more of a real force over the course of this year.

8:45Certainly, that's manifesting not just as excitement but anxiety in many places, but what it's not manifesting as is dismissal. Whether one thinks that we need extreme policy solutions to halt the unending progress of AI, or whether one thinks that we need to be racing ahead to keep ahead of our competitors, the one thing that clearly can't be done is ignore it. Anyways, friends, hope that this gave you some insight into how other people in different industries and around America think about artificial intelligence. Until next time, peace.