“Artificial intelligence would be the program that, by putting a little bit of information into it, is capable of finding the answer you are looking for.” This is how one of the participants in the first study on social perception of artificial intelligence (AI) made in Spain what this technology is. Wikipedia’s definition of AI is not very similar to this participant’s idea: “It is a discipline and a set of cognitive and intellectual capacities expressed by computer systems or combinations of algorithms whose purpose is the creation of machines that mimic human intelligence to perform tasks, and that can improve as they gather information.” Perhaps the big difference between the opinion of the survey participant and reality is that AI does not require “a little bit of information” but rather, it needs huge amounts of it.
Researchers from the University of Salamanca have carried out this first study on the social perception of artificial intelligence in Spain. The research consisted of a survey to which 684 people from all the autonomous communities responded, and in holding discussion groups divided by age. The most striking result is the interest and wide acceptance of this technology among the Spanish. 44.81% of those who responded showed interest in artificial intelligence, and 29.24%, a lot of interest. And 85.6% believe that AI has a positive effect on society. When assessing these results, it is important to understand the context in which the research was carried out: “Both the survey and the discussion groups were carried out after the explosion in popularity of ChatTPG”, explains Carlos Arcila Calderón, principal investigator of the study. “In the (discussion) groups we have seen that opinions have changed after the irruption of ChatGPT because people have discovered the practical application of artificial intelligence in their day-to-day lives,” explains Patricia Sánchez Holgado, also a researcher in the group that has carried out the work. “They have seen that there they can have a chollazoNow they appreciate the performance that they can get from this tool”, he adds.
This coincidence in time with the irruption of ChatGPT may be the reason why the answers in this work differ from previous ones carried out in national surveys on the social perception of science and technology that also asked about artificial intelligence, such as the one carried out by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (Fecyt) in 2022. In the latter, 34.5% of the people surveyed believed that artificial intelligence has many or enough risks, compared to 27.8% who believed that it did not. it has risks or these are very low, while in the survey carried out by the group from the University of Salamanca only 10.51% believe that the damages are greater compared to 41.14% who think otherwise. In the opinion of Carlos Arcila Calderón, “the explanation for this divergence in the results may be that in the Fecyt survey artificial intelligence was closely identified with robotics and is generally mistrusted because it is associated with the loss of jobs.”
The alert calls sent by the main managers of the largest technology companies about the risks of artificial intelligence do not seem to have had much impact on the opinion of the people who have participated in the study at the University of Salamanca and that have been going on since last March. Although the work does also show the main concerns of citizens about this technology: because of its possible implication in the loss of jobs, because of the misuse that people can make of it, because of how it can affect digital privacy and piracy and because of the possible appearance of gender, racial or political biases.
Coupled with the great interest that artificial intelligence arouses among Spanish citizens, the other result that the researchers highlight about their work is the lack of knowledge that society shows about this technology: “The term is known, people usually use it and in most cases they think they understand what they are talking about,” says Carlos Arcila Calderón, “but when we go to the more application part, especially the one dedicated to biases, which is where most of the risks are currently found, we see that there is no real understanding of what intelligence is. artificial. Our opinion as experts is that among citizens there is a perception of understanding that is higher than what actually exists, ”he explains.
The study of the University of Salamanca on AI is made public in full discussion of the new legislation on this matter that the European Union has raised. The artificial intelligence researcher Isabelle Hupont, adviser to the European Commission on this matter and who has not participated in the research, points out that the results of the work of the group from the University of Salamanca are very positive: “This study seems wonderful to me. Their results have surprised me for good because I did not expect such acceptance in Spain”. She explains Hupont that the social acceptance of AI varies by country and culture: “There have been similar studies in other countries and what is observed is that the acceptance of AI is cultural and depends on many factors. Some of these factors are historical. If, for example, a question is asked in a country where there has just been a terrorist attack, and the public sees that AI programs can be used to gather information, people are more open to this technology”.
Hupont adds that he believes that in Spain “a significant effort is being made to talk about AI, its risks but also its benefits, and that people are more informed than in other countries.” What both Isabelle Hupont and the researchers from the University of Salamanca agree on is the need to legislate: “My opinion is that artificial intelligence clearly needs to be legislated”, explains Hupont. “Europe is going to be the first to pass a law to regulate this technology. It is not yet in force, at the moment we are in the phase of proposals being negotiated among the 27 member states”, she adds. Sánchez Holgado also agrees that laws must be established to regulate this technology, but he warns: “These laws have to protect the public, but it is essential that they do not put sticks in the wheels of the development of technology.”
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