by Ryan Wasson
Artificial Intelligence, otherwise known as AI. It’s a concept that seems new, but it’s actually been around longer than you might think. The concept gets fairly complicated, but in its simplest form, AI is the ability for a computer or robot controlled by a computer to do tasks usually done by humans. Of course, this concept extends much further than that, but the public’s perception of AI in whether or not it’s beneficial to society varies greatly among individuals.
I found out the results of some of those findings in a scholarly article published by Luye Bao, a Ph.D. candidate in mass communications in the Department of Life Sciences Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, among seven other authors who contributed to the article. The authors focus their analysis on a web-survey of U.S. adults ages 18 and older conducted by YouGov.
Before delving into the results of the analysis, the authors note that there are some glaring issues with AI, highlighting issues such as facial recognition having difficulty in identifying darker skin tones and the problems with algorithms using historical data in a way that, when applied to AI, causes certain prejudices to be seen towards certain groups of people (Bao et al., 2022). I believe AI certainly has its flaws and addressing aspects such as facial recognition and algorithms is a critical steppingstone as a foundation that needs to be considered and reworked as we continue to make advancements within the field of AI. I’ve never had many issues personally with AI, especially regarding how well my phone can recognize my face and the faces of other, typically white, individuals. Regardless, I do believe it’s an issue that needs to be addressed, even if I haven’t had any first-hand experience with some of the more prevalent problems facing certain groups in everyday life.
An interesting point that the authors make is how AI is classified as a “wicked issue.” According to the authors, this means that AI is a scientific issue that is complicated enough to where social impacts will be seen, and complex questions will be asked. This also means that scientists alone can’t have all the answers and will likely have to refer to other “actors” to get a wider range of perspectives and perhaps more answers (Bao et al., 2022).
I completely agree with this idea. I believe that many issues can’t simply be answered by science. Regardless of the innovations in science, looking at the people that contributed to that research and those findings can be looked at from a sociological standpoint, for example, to answer questions on why scientists are discovering certain findings when it comes to AI. This may, in turn, be revealing and useful information for scientists in how they can or should conduct future studies in regard to AI.
Overall, the author’s findings showed that most people that were surveyed either thought that the risks outweighed the benefits (negative), had both high risk and high chance of benefits (ambivalent), or had slightly more benefits than risk (tepid) (Bao et al., 2022). People that tended to be better educated overall, formed their opinions within these ranges (Bao et al. 2022). It makes sense to me that the results would pan out this way, albeit the sample size wasn’t that big. I tend to be more skeptical about AI, even though I haven’t had too many issues with AI that I’ve encountered throughout my daily life. Within mobile technology, AI has made great leaps overall, especially in being able to scan people’s faces and send video messages through facial emotes. However, the issue in how skin tone plays a role in that may hinder people’s ability to use this feature. Future iterations of AI on all platforms, especially mobile phones will need to be designed and/or redesigned with inclusivity and accessibility in mind to maximize the amount of people that can use and enjoy AI to its fullest extent.
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