What are AI researchers worried about?

TL;DR

This large survey of over 4,000 AI researchers reveals that their concerns about AI risks and benefits are more aligned with public opinions than previously thought, emphasizing current sociotechnical risks over existential threats.

Contribution

The paper presents the largest survey of AI researchers' attitudes, highlighting their perspectives on risks and benefits, and compares these with public opinions to inform policy and dialogue.

Findings

AI researchers' views on risks are more aligned with the public than expected.

Only 3% of researchers prioritize existential risks.

Researchers focus more on sociotechnical risks than future existential threats.

Abstract

As AI attracts vast investment and attention, there are competing concerns about the technology's opportunities and uncertainties that blend technical and social questions. The public debate, dominated by a few powerful voices, tends to highlight extreme promises and threats. We wanted to know whether public discussions or technology companies' priorities were representative of AI researchers' opinions. Our survey of more than 4,000 AI researchers is, we think, the largest conducted to date. It was designed to understand attitudes to a variety of issues and include some comparisons with public attitudes derived from existing surveys. Most previous surveys of AI researchers have asked them for predictions of passing a technological threshold or the probabilities of some catastrophic event. These surveys mask the uncertainty and diversity that normally characterises scientific research. Our hypothesis was that the opinions of AI researchers would be markedly different from those of members of the public. While there are areas of divergence, particularly in attitudes to the technology's potential benefits, our survey shows some surprising convergence between researchers' and publics' opinions, particularly in the assessment and prioritisation of risk. Responses to an open text question 'What one thing most worries you about AI?' reveal that only 3% of AI researchers prioritise existential risks, despite the prominence given to these risks in media and policy. AI technologies and AI researchers seem to be much more 'normal' than public representations suggest. Our survey results suggest the possibility for new forms of public dialogue on AI's harms, risks and opportunities. Rather than speculating on future potential risks, policymakers and AI researchers should collaborate on understanding and mitigating the range of sociotechnical risks that are already of clear public concern.