Exciting, Useful, Worrying, Futuristic: Public Perception of Artificial Intelligence in 8 Countries

TL;DR

This study surveys public opinion on AI across eight countries, revealing widespread perceptions of AI's societal impact, support for responsible use, and diverse sentiments categorized as exciting, useful, worrying, and futuristic.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive international survey of public attitudes towards AI, highlighting cultural differences and key themes in perception.

Findings

Widespread belief that AI will significantly impact society

Strong support for responsible AI development and use

Distinct sentiment themes vary across countries

Abstract

As the influence and use of artificial intelligence (AI) have grown and its transformative potential has become more apparent, many questions have been raised regarding the economic, political, social, and ethical implications of its use. Public opinion plays an important role in these discussions, influencing product adoption, commercial development, research funding, and regulation. In this paper we present results of an in-depth survey of public opinion of artificial intelligence conducted with 10,005 respondents spanning eight countries and six continents. We report widespread perception that AI will have significant impact on society, accompanied by strong support for the responsible development and use of AI, and also characterize the public's sentiment towards AI with four key themes (exciting, useful, worrying, and futuristic) whose prevalence distinguishes response to AI in different countries.