According to a survey conducted by Oxford University’s Center for the Governance of AI, many Americans fear the development of high-level machine intelligence.
Participants were asked the question, “Suppose that high-level machine intelligence could be developed one day. How positive or negative do you expect the overall impact of high-level machine intelligence to be on humanity in the long run?”
Thirty-four percent thought the tech would have a detrimental overall impact, while 12 percent took it even further, believing “it could be extremely bad, leading to possible human extinction,” according to the survey. Twenty-seven percent of respondents were trending toward the positive, while 21 percent thought AI wouldn’t have much of an effect. A total of 18 percent were undecided.
However, most respondents (82 percent) believe that AI and robot development needs stringent supervision. Despite this trepidation, 32 percent of Americans think the technology should still be developed, while 27 percent think otherwise, choosing “no” toward its development.
University researchers and the U.S. military were the top two places Americans most trust to build AI. Microsoft came in third, beating the likes of Amazon, Google, Apple, and Facebook.
You can view a summary of the survey’s results in the Statista chart below.