Author: Lee Rainie, Janna Anderson, Emily A. Vogels
Publisher: Pew Research Center
Publication Year: 2021
Summary: The following article opens up by describing the pervasive and ever-expanding role artificial intelligence (AI) has taken up in our lives to contextualize that experts and advocates around the world have become worried about the long-term implications of AI, including concerns about how advances in AI will change society, as well as what it means to be productive and to exercise free will. Pew Research Center and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center asked 602 experts in the tech industry where they thought efforts aimed at creating ethical AI would stand in 2030. 68% believed ethical principles focused on the public good would NOT be applied to the development of AI by 2030, while only 32% believed ethical principles would be applied. The key worries can be summarized as follows: “The main developers and deployers of AI are focused on profit-seeking and social control, and there is no consensus about what ethical AI would look like.” Meanwhile, the key hopes can be summarized as follows: “Progress is being made as AI spreads and shows its value; societies have always found ways to mitigate the problems arising from technological evolution.” Finally, the article includes excerpts from interviews of a select number of the 602 experts who were asked to provide their opinion. Many of these interviews are enlightening in terms of what the current thinking is within the industry.