Reduced AI Acceptance After the Generative AI Boom: Evidence From a Two-Wave Survey Study

TL;DR

The study reveals that public acceptance of AI decreased after the generative AI boom, with increased demand for human oversight and widened social inequalities, based on a large-scale Swiss survey.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence of changing public attitudes toward AI following the rise of generative AI technologies, highlighting social and perceptual shifts.

Findings

Acceptance of AI decreased from 23% to 30%.

Support for human oversight increased from 18% to 26%.

Social inequalities widened in education, language, and gender.

Abstract

The rapid adoption of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) technologies has led many organizations to integrate AI into their products and services, often without considering user preferences. Yet, public attitudes toward AI use, especially in impactful decision-making scenarios, are underexplored. Using a large-scale two-wave survey study (n_wave1=1514, n_wave2=1488) representative of the Swiss population, we examine shifts in public attitudes toward AI before and after the launch of ChatGPT. We find that the GenAI boom is significantly associated with reduced public acceptance of AI (see Figure 1) and increased demand for human oversight in various decision-making contexts. The proportion of respondents finding AI "not acceptable at all" increased from 23% to 30%, while support for human-only decision-making rose from 18% to 26%. These shifts have amplified existing social inequalities in terms of widened educational, linguistic, and gender gaps post-boom. Our findings challenge industry assumptions about public readiness for AI deployment and highlight the critical importance of aligning technological development with evolving public preferences.