Our phones, our cars, our televisions, our homes: they’re all getting smarter. Artificial intelligence is already inextricably woven into everyday life, and its impact will only grow in the coming years. But while this development inspires much discussion among members of the scientific community, public opinion on artificial intelligence has remained relatively unknown. 

Artificial Intelligence: American Attitudes and Trends, a report published earlier in January by the Center for the Governance of AI, explores this question. Its authors relied on an in-depth survey to analyze American attitudes towards artificial intelligence, from privacy concerns to beliefs about U.S. technological superiority. Some of their findings--most Americans, for example, don’t trust Facebook--were unsurprising. But much of their data reflects trends within the American public that have previously gone unnoticed.    

This month Ariel was joined by Baobao Zhang, lead author of the report, to talk about these findings. Zhang is a PhD candidate in Yale University's political science department and research affiliate with the Center for the Governance of AI at the University of Oxford. Her work focuses on American politics, international relations, and experimental methods. 

In this episode, Zhang spoke about her take on some of the report’s most interesting findings, the new questions it raised, and future research directions for her team. Topics discussed include: 
-Demographic differences in perceptions of AI
-Discrepancies between expert and public opinions
-Public trust (or lack thereof) in AI developers
-The effect of information on public perceptions of scientific issues

Artificial Intelligence: American Attitudes and Trends with Baobao Zhang

The Future of Life Institute (FLI) is a nonprofit working to reduce global catastrophic and existential risk from powerful technologies. In particular, FLI focuses on risks from artificial intelligence (AI), biotechnology, nuclear weapons and climate change.

The Institute's work is made up of three main strands: grantmaking for risk reduction, educational outreach, and advocacy within the United Nations, US government and European Union institutions.

FLI has become one of the world's leading voices on the governance of AI having created one of the earliest and most influential sets of governance principles: the Asilomar AI Principles.