How People Feel about Artificial Intelligence: A Research Roundup

How do you feel about artificial intelligence, technology that displays human-like intelligence?

Are you more Mark Zuckerberg (AI will be a benevolent force for good) or more Elon Musk (AI will pose an existential threat to humanity)?

Perhaps both, perhaps neither – but whether you are considering marketing AI or marketing with AI, how the public – not tech luminaries – feel about AI, matters. Too much agency hype talk is focusing on technology rather than humanity with respect to AI. We need to better understand how people feel about AI – their hopes, fears and meanings – if we are to use it or promote it successfully.

To this end, Google has just launched PAIR – the People and AI Research Initiative, to understand better people’s perspectives and perceptions around AI. (for more, see also the Partnership on AI (a collaboration between Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and others) on the responsible use of AI in business and Open AI).

And in the meantime here’s a roundup of downloadable research reports on public perceptions of AI.

What People Feel about Artificial Intelligence: Downloadable Reports

• AI Today, AI Tomorrow: Awareness, Acceptance and Anticipation of AI – A Global Consumer Perspective (ARM, 2017 | PDF)
• AI-Ready or Not: Artificial Intelligence Here We Come (Weber Shandwick, 2016 | PDF)
• Artificial Intelligence is Here: People Just Don’t Realize It (Hubspot, 2017 | PDF)
• Artificial Intelligence: What’s Now, What’s New, What’s Next (eMarketer/IBM 2016 | PDF)
• Bot Me: How AI is pushing man and machine closer together (PWC Consumer Intelligence, 2016 | PDF)
• Do You Speak Human? Democratizing Tomorrow’s AI (IKEA, 2017 | Site)
• Dynamic Digital Consumers Survey (Accenture, 2017 | PDF)
• Long-Term Trends in the Public Perception of Artificial Intelligence (Microsoft/Stanford 2017 | PDF)
• Public Perceptions of AI (Morning Consult Tracking, 2017 | PDF)
• Public Views of Machine Learning: Research (Ipsos Mori/Royal Society | PDF)
• Speak Easy: The Future Answers to You (WPP, 2017 | PDF)
• Superintelligence and Public Opinion (Webb, 2017 | Site, Data)
• The Impact of AI on Marketing (2017, The Drum/Sysomos, 2017 | Survey)
• The State of Artificial Intelligence in the UK, 2017: Public Perceptions of the Most Disruptive Technology (Inside Sales, 2017 | PDF)
• What Consumers Really Think about AI (Pega, 2017 | PDF)

The above are primary research reports.  Below are other reports (not primary research, but offer some useful marketing and consumer insights nonetheless).

• Artificial Intelligence in the Real World: The Business Case Takes Shape (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2016 | PDF)
• Artificial Intelligence Powering the Consumer Journey (Zenith, 2017 | PDF)
• Our Sexual Future with Robots (Responsible Robotics, 2017 | PDF)
• Preparing for the Future of Artificial Intelligence (NSTC US Gov, 2016 | PDF)
• State of Marketing 2017 (Salesforce, 2017 | PDF)
• The AI 100 (CB Insights, 2017 | PDF)