One Data AI Barometer:How Germans See the Technology
Passau, October 26, 2023 – Almost a third (32 percent) of Germans state that they encounter artificial intelligence (AI) multiple times per week or even once a day. This makes it the perfect time to take a closer look at how the population perceives AI. As a software company, One Data wanted to find out which terms relating to AI are familiar to German citizens, which ways they are already using AI, how they rate the properties of AI, and what kind of fears and hopes they have in relation to the technology. More than 2,000 citizens aged 18 and above were surveyed*, and the results were visualized in the AI barometer below:
Defining terms
In total, 60 percent of respondents believe they can define the term ‘artificial intelligence’ (AI), while 57 percent are comfortable with the term ‘algorithm’. By contrast, the respondents were less familiar with some of the more specific terms from the realm of AI technology. For example, only a third of Germans were able to offer a definition for ‘machine learning’, and this fell to just 15 percent when it came to ‘large language models’.
The properties of AI
In this category, the respondents rated AI on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the opposite of 10. AI was more likely to be described as ‘mimetic’, ‘prone to manipulation’ and ‘dependent’. On the other hand, artificial intelligence is described as being more ‘free of bias’ than not on average.
Very few respondents associate genuine feelings with AI: the strongest divergence in the barometer came from rating AI as emotional or emotionless on a scale of 1 to 10. On average, AI tends to be associated with descriptors such as ‘boring’ instead of ‘amusing’ and ‘immoral’ instead of ‘moral’. At the same time, the respondents do tend to ascribe a certain level of ‘human’ intelligence to AI.
Contact with AI
Overall, 84 percent of respondents come into contact with AI, with 32 percent stating that they do so daily or several times per week. In other words, the use of this technology is firmly anchored in everyday society.
Apps in day-to-day life
Which applications lead citizens to come into contact with AI technology? More than half of respondents believe they encounter AI when they use social media. More than one third think this is the case when using voice assistants such as Siri and Alexa. Around three out of ten Germans use AI-based translation tools such as DeepL.
Everyday processes – what might be replaced by AI?
Will AI help us remember every important appointment and meeting in future? The majority of Germans (60 percent) believe the technology will, at the very least, be able to coordinate our appointments. More than half of citizens can imagine that the future will feature self-driving cars controlled by artificial intelligence.
Areas where it would be better to exclude AI
As a counter-question, the participants in the study were asked where they think AI would be better left out in the cold and which AI-generated formats they would refrain from using. News was the first area to be mentioned. This is consistent with the assessment that AI tends to be perceived as susceptible to manipulation and dependent – two characteristics that are not associated with serious journalism.
*The data used is based on an online survey conducted by YouGov Deutschland GmbH on behalf of One Data GmbH. A total of 2,065 persons took part between May 2 and 5, 2023. The results were weighted and are representative of the German population aged 18 and over.
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