Individual Differences in Risk Perception of Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

Abstract. This cross-sectional study (N = 325) investigated the relationship between the Dark Triad personality traits and the perception of artificial intelligence (AI) risk. Narrow AI risk perception was measured based on recently identified perceived risks in the public. Artificial general intelligence (AGI) risk perception was operationalized in terms of plausibility ratings and subjective probability estimates on deceptive AI scenarios developed by Bostrom (2014) , in which AI-sided deception is described as a function of intelligence. Machiavellianism and psychopathy predicted narrow AI risk perception above the shared variance of the Dark Triad and above the Big Five. In individuals with self-reported knowledge of machine learning, the Dark Triad traits were associated with AGI risk perception. This study provides evidence for the existence of substantial individual differences in the risk perception of AI.

Attitudes towards AI: measurement and associations with personality

“…MacDorman and Entezari 28 discovered that neurotic individuals reported significantly stronger eeriness after they had encountered an autonomous android than those with lower scores in the trait. Similar findings emerged with regards to people’s views on self-driving cars 11 and narrow AI applications 30 . Based on this evidence as well as the generally anxious nature of neurotic individuals, our hypothesis is as follows:…”

“…To our knowledge, only a handful of scientific studies have actually addressed this issue, and most of them have yielded rather limited results—either by focusing on very specific types of AI 10 , 11 , 27 or by measuring reactions to physically embodied AI (e.g., robots), which makes it much harder to pinpoint the cause of the effect 28 , 29 . While another recent study indeed explored attitudes towards AI as a technical concept regardless of its specific use or embodiment 30 , this effort focused exclusively on negative attitudes, thus leaving out a substantial part (i.e., the positive side) of how users think and feel about artificially intelligent systems.…”

“…High agreeableness manifests itself in the proclivity to show warm, cooperative, and kind-hearted behavior. Regarding the topic at hand, previous research suggests that agreeableness might be (moderately) correlated with positive views about automation or specific types of AI 11 , 27 , 30 . In line with this, we assume:…”

Are the Steps on Likert Scales Equidistant? Responses on Visual Analog Scales Allow Estimating Their Distances

“…Ease of administration is no longer a criterion with the current availability of digital technology. The VAS response format has indeed started to be used on the intuition that it provides higher precision (see, for example, Dragan et al, 2022 ; Liu et al, 2019 ; Weigl et al, 2021 ; Wissing & Reinhard, 2018 ), although no solid evidence to this effect has ever been reported. In contrast, recent and direct evidence reported by Kuhlmann et al (2017) indicates that scales administered in a within-subjects study with Likert and VAS format do not differ in their score distributions or classical psychometric properties, which shows that the surmised higher precision provided by a continuous response format is only an unfounded myth.…”

„AI Takeover… doesn’t sound that bad!” – Authoritarian ambivalence towards artificial intelligence

“…Women displayed more positive attitudes towards self-driving cars than men [7]. Psychological individual differences are also relevant for attitudes towards AI: for example, two of the Big Five personality factors, namely openness and conscientiousness, correlated negatively with the perception of AI as a risk [20]. In a recent study, Neuroticism correlated (weak) positively with fear of AI in a German as well as in a Chinese sample [21].…”