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arXiv:1609.04904cs.CL

Long-Term Trends in the Public Perception of Artificial Intelligence

Ethan Fast, Eric Horvitz

Early discovery. Linked by one identifiable commenter. This paper is outside the main ranking; a mention is not an endorsement.

Abstract

Analyses of text corpora over time can reveal trends in beliefs, interest, and sentiment about a topic. We focus on views expressed about artificial intelligence (AI) in the New York Times over a 30-year period. General interest, awareness, and discussion about AI has waxed and waned since the field was founded in 1956. We present a set of measures that captures levels of engagement, measures of pessimism and optimism, the prevalence of specific hopes and concerns, and topics that are linked to discussions about AI over decades. We find that discussion of AI has increased sharply since 2009, and that these discussions have been consistently more optimistic than pessimistic. However, when we examine specific concerns, we find that worries of loss of control of AI, ethical concerns for AI, and the negative impact of AI on work have grown in recent years. We also find that hopes for AI in healthcare and education have increased over time.

arXiv comments
In AAAI 2017
Journal reference
DOI
Subjects
cs.CLComputation and Language cs.AIArtificial Intelligence cs.CYComputers and Society

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Linked by 1 identifiable commenter in 2 comments across 2 threads, from Dec 2016 to Dec 2016. Found in 1 HN submission from Sep 2016 to Sep 2016. Open submission discussions.

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Discussed in comments2 threads

  1. Public Policy Implications of AI 1 comment

    • "The second is that there needs to be a political or a regulatory response. We need to have a national and an international conversation about redistribution, about safety nets, about measuring this technology and correctly anticipating its arrival. People are aware of this."…

      unignorantView on HNParent context

  2. This AI Boom Will Also Bust 1 comment

    • Along similar lines, we did some work investigating public perception of AI over the past thirty years: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1609.04904.pdf From Figure 1, it's clear we are now in a boom.

      unignorantView on HNParent context

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