Initial validation of the general attitudes towards Artificial Intelligence Scale.

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Artificial Intelligence Studies
• Sociology

Background:

• General attitudes towards Artificial Intelligence (AI) are complex and influenced by various factors.
• Existing measures may not fully capture the nuances of public perception towards AI.
• Understanding public sentiment is crucial for the responsible development and deployment of AI technologies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a new scale, the General Attitudes towards Artificial Intelligence Scale (GAAIS), to measure public attitudes towards AI.
• To investigate the relationship between general attitudes towards AI and attitudes towards specific AI applications.
• To explore factors influencing public comfort and perceived capability regarding different AI tasks.

Main Methods:

• Development and initial statistical validation of the GAAIS using Exploratory Factor Analysis.
• Assessment of psychometric properties, including reliability, convergent, and discriminant validity.
• Cross-validation study rating comfortableness and perceived capability of specific AI applications sourced from newspaper articles.

Main Results:

• The GAAIS demonstrated good psychometric properties with distinct positive and negative subscales reflecting utility, emotions, and concerns.
• Comfortableness with specific AI applications was a strong predictor of general attitudes, while perceived capability was weaker.
• Participants showed positive attitudes towards AI in big data domains (e.g., astronomy) but negative attitudes towards AI in human judgment tasks (e.g., medical treatment).
• AI applications with significant ethical dimensions elicited greater discomfort than predicted by their perceived capabilities.

Conclusions:

• The validated GAAIS provides a robust measure for assessing general attitudes towards AI.
• Public perception of AI is multifaceted, influenced by the nature of the task and ethical considerations.
• Divergent attitudes towards AI applications highlight the need for careful consideration of societal impact and ethical implications in AI development.