Since the beginning of May, the Meinungsmonitor Künstliche Intelligenz [MeMo:KI] has been examining the public's attitude to AI issues every two weeks.
How intensively do citizens deal with this technology? Where do they see areas of application? How should AI be used to combat the Corona pandemic? And does the attitude of political parties towards AI applications influence the individual's election decision? The initial data make it clear: the positive basic mood towards artificial intelligence continues to brighten, especially in times of crisis.
Use of AI in anti-corona research positively evaluated
The citizens have quite differentiated judgements about individual applications," emphasizes study director Prof. Dr. Frank Marcinkowski (Institute for Social Sciences). "The use of AI in medical anti-corona research in particular is met with great approval: AI-based measures that affect the collective more, such as the search for active substances, the detection of an outbreak and the prediction of the spread of the virus, are supported by a large majority. However, the data also show that public approval decreases as the potential areas of application of AI move closer into people's private sphere or existential questions are to be clarified by AI. However, still every fourth respondent would allow AI in order to calculate the survival chances of individual patients. And every fifth respondent would agree in principle when AI is used to make recommendations for the priorities of patient treatment.
[MeMo:KI] documents opinion formation of the population every fourteen days
Within the framework of [MeMo:KI], the development of public opinion on artificial intelligence is documented by a survey repeated every two weeks. The [MeMo:KI] is a joint project of the Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS) in Bochum and the HHU and is funded by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia. In addition to the regular survey of 1000 randomly selected citizens, there is also a semi-automatic evaluation of German media coverage on the topic. The results of both surveys are freely available to the public. "We prepare the results of our research in an online format with interactive graphics and tables so that all interested citizens can see for themselves how society and the media deal with the topic of artificial intelligence," says Prof. Dr. Marcinkowski.
The current evaluation of the survey and further information on the research project can be found here: