Where Are People Most Excited About AI? It’s Not the US

America and China are on opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes public sentiment about AI, according to a report from the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence.

The 2023 AI Index Report(Opens in a new window), which is published annually, examines AI’s impact on education, politics, healthcare, and more. It asked people from 28 countries if they agree with the following statement: “Products and services using AI have more benefits than drawbacks.”

Chinese respondents were the most likely to agree than any other country surveyed, at 78%, followed by Saudi Arabia (76%) and India (71%).

Only 35% of Americans—among the lowest of surveyed countries—agreed that products and services using AI had more benefits than drawbacks. After the US, the Netherlands, Canada, and France were the countries with the least positive sentiment toward AI.

(Credit: 2023 Stanford AI Index Report, 2022 IPSOS Survey)

“AI has the potential to have a transformative impact on society,” the report says. “As such it has become increasingly important to monitor public attitudes toward AI. Better understanding trends in public opinion is essential in informing decisions pertaining to AI’s development, regulation, and use.”

The report cites several reasons Americans are feeling unsure about the newest wave of technological innovation, including concern about loss of human jobs (19%); surveillance, hacking, and digital privacy (16%); and lack of human connection (12%).

Regarding job loss, the report finds reasons to be hopeful. “Across every sector in the United States for which there is data (with the exception of agriculture, forestry, fishery and hunting), the number of AI-related job postings has increased on average from 1.7% in 2021 to 1.9% in 2022,” it says. “Employers in the United States are increasingly looking for workers with AI-related skills.”

Race and gender discrimination are other top concerns. “There often exists a disparity between the individuals who develop AI and those who use AI,” the report says. “North American AI researchers and practitioners in both industry and academia are predominantly white and male. This lack of diversity can lead to harms, among them the reinforcement of existing societal inequalities and bias.”

These issues are not necessarily improving as AI models develop, the report finds. They are taking other forms, and coming with trade-offs: as one issue resolves, another worsens. “Extensive analysis of language models suggests that language models which perform better on certain fairness benchmarks tend to have worse gender bias,” the report says.

For example, in the image below, a text-to-image generator surfaces a selection of images it believes corresponds with the word “CEO,” showing one woman and 17 men.

AI models surface images they believe correspond with the word CEO.
(Credit: 2023 Stanford AI Index)

AI-related misinformation controversies are also on the rise, the report finds. The number of controversial incidents increased 25 times since 2012, the report says, citing the AIAAIC(Opens in a new window) database. This includes a deepfake video of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy surrendering, faux images of President Donald Trump being arrested that went viral, and more.

The vast social issues associated with AI has caused interest in AI ethics to “skyrocket,” the report finds. Recently, multiple high-profile figures have spoken out about AI. In a 7-page letter published last month, Bill Gates outlines the impact of AI on society and notes it is more likely to benefit the rich than the poor without proper regulation.

Two weeks ago, Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, Andrew Wang, and others published a letter calling for a six-month pause on development of AI systems more powerful than OpenAI’s GPT-4. “Should we let machines flood our information channels with propaganda and untruth? Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones?” the letter asks. “Should we risk loss of control of our civilization? Such decisions must not be delegated to unelected tech leaders.” (AI ethicists pushed back on this effort for ignoring current harms.)

(Credit: 2023 Stanford AI Index Report)

Despite the US hesitation on AI, the US leads the world on AI-related investments. In 2022, US companies spent 3.5 times more than China on AI ($47.4 billion versus $13.4 billion), with the biggest investments being in healthcare, data management, and financial technology.

The US also leads the globe in terms of newly founded AI companies, with 1.9 times more than the EU and UK combined, and 3.4 times more than China. However, China dominates all other countries combined in terms of most industrial robots in use. Of existing (not newly founded) companies, adoption of AI technologies has “more than doubled since 2017,” and the organizations that have done so “report realizing meaningful cost decreases and revenue increases,” says the report, citing McKinsey’s annual research survey.

Plus, there are still many Americans excited about AI. They believe it has the potential to make life and society better (31%) and to save time and make things more efficient (13%).

(Credit: 2023 Stanford AI Index)