The Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation commissioned Deltapoll to conduct international research on public opinion towards AI safety ahead of the UK’s AI Safety Summit 2023. Respondents from the general public in nine countries – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, the UK and the USA – expressed widespread support for AI safety testing.
Key findings:
- When asked how much they agree or disagree that powerful AI should be tested by independent experts to ensure it is safe, most respondents in all countries agreed, ranging from 59% in Japan to 76% in the UK and Singapore.
- When asked if they would support a government-backed AI safety institute evaluating powerful AI to test if it is safe, most respondents in all countries agreed, ranging from 51% in Japan to 65% in Italy, with 62% agreeing in the UK.
- Across all the countries surveyed, the most useful applications of AI identified by respondents were ‘Using surveillance footage to detect crime’ and ‘Diagnosing a patient’s illness’.
- In nearly all countries surveyed, more than half of the respondents were worried about the risk of AI being used to carry out cyberattacks, AI being used to help design biological weapons, and humans losing control of AI. In many instances the proportions of respondents worried about these risks were sizeable.
- There was broad agreement across respondents from all countries surveyed that “mitigating the risk of extinction should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.” Agreement ranged from 56% in South Korea to 40% in Germany, but in no country surveyed is the proportion of respondents disagreeing above 13% (one in seven).
- Opinion was divided over whether the potential risks of AI outweigh the potential benefits. In Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the UK and the US, the largest proportion of respondents believed that AI has more risks than benefits. On the other hand, in Italy, Singapore and South Korea the largest proportion of respondents believed AI has more benefits than risks.
See the full publication, along with all data sets: International survey of public opinion on AI safety – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)