Study Highlights Concerns Over AI Misuse Despite Widespread Adoption

A new survey by Rutgers University New Brunswick found out what public thoughts on political and media impact of artificial intelligence as well as an increase in adoption of AI in our daily lives. Respondents said that they are worried about the impact of AI on politics (58%) while some said that they are concerned about the impact of AI on news media too (53%). Researchers say that many people are worried because they are afraid of misinformation and manipulation AI can spread which was widely seen in US elections in 2024. 41% of the respondents also think that AI cannot protect their personal information so giving it your personal information is extremely harmful.

Even with the concerns regarding AI, the survey showed that one-third of the respondents have used AI to ask health related questions or other specific questions which require people to give their personal information. For the survey, 5000 people belonging to different ages, genders, demographics and geographical regions were surveyed. A co-author of the report, Katherine Ognyanova, says that they wanted to survey people because of how quickly people are being dependent on AI. As AI tools have potential to be implemented in all types of industries, it is important to know how people are using AI and perceiving it. Everyday, people are rapidly changing their opinions about AI and it is important to know how news and media is changing their narratives.

53% of the respondents of the survey use AI tools like Gemini, ChatGPT and Claude. It was also found that 90% of the Americans have heard of AI, with 51% recognizing AI as generative AI and 12% being familiar with the term ‘large language model’. There's also a demographic disparity in the usage of AI with male, better educated, higher income people and young using AI more than others. 48% of the respondents were also in support of using AI for household chores, but 57% of them not in favour of using AU for surgery and 53% not favoring AI driving vehicles. There were 30% of the respondents who said that they come across AI generated text or summary daily, while 86% of them find those summaries and texts helpful.

Researchers are planning to conduct the same type of surveys every year three times to know the ever evolving opinions of Americans related to AI. The reports through those surveys will help researchers understand how people perceive AI adoption, AI generated content and role of AI in jobs and industries.

Read next: Study Exposes LLM Safety Loopholes Despite Advanced Training Measures
by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World