WASHINGTON (TND) — Americans are becoming more skeptical of artificial intelligence, especially when used by social media companies.
Research from Axios and the Harris Poll found Meta, ByteDance, and X have lower trust scores while companies like OpenAI, Microsoft, and Nvidia, with a larger focus on AI, are more trusted by Americans.
"There's a public cynicism that they're building AI on top of a platform that already Americans don't trust," explained John Gerzema, CEO of the Harris Poll. "We found that 35% of Americans trusted social media for getting their news and 78% of Americans said it was biased, so there's very much a sort of a built-in mistrust when it comes to social media."
Nvidia earned 81.2 and Microsoft earned 77.5. OpenAI's score was 71.8, almost six points lower than last year's.
ByteDance scored 60.7, Meta ranked 59.6, and X has a low reputation score of 58.8.
"On the one hand, people not entirely trusting social media," explained Christopher Alexander, the chief analytics officer for the Pioneer Development Group. "On the other hand, I think people are understanding that AI is not this limitless, sci-fi tool of the future."
Alexander added the distrust is partially because people have realized they are social media's product.
They're learning everything they can about you to sell things to you."There has been evidence of this like the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal where the personal data of millions of Facebook users were collected without consent for things like political advertising.
TikTok's connection to China and what is being shared is also an ongoing national security concern.
This lack of confidence could be a huge issue for social media companies' futures in AI, especially if the technology does not benefit users.
"We had 71% of companies decline in our survey. When we asked the public why they said that companies were not focused on helping me manage my monthly budget, meaning that they weren't focused on bringing down high prices, they were passing along costs, they were giving less value to the consumer," Gerzema said.
If you put AI into that context, basically talking about AI was sort of this pie-in-the-sky Jetsons thing. When Americans were just like, hey, I need my gas and my groceries to be more affordable.Although most people see the importance of AI, there is not a huge rush to products or services that use it. There are concerns about AI taking people's jobs.
Fifty-eight percent of Americans recognize the importance of integrating AI into products. Still, only 30% said they would be more likely to buy the product or service just because it uses AI.
"With deep fakes and everything. There's as many reasons to be concerned about it as it deserves to be excited about it," Alexander noted.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uLbAnKuvZpOkunC6xLCqaKaRqbawuoywpquklGSurrHRopqapqNitLO71maumqqpYrynecCiZKKmXai8pLXApWSmnZSerm6x16mpnqujYrGmsc%2BepaKml2Kxqr%2FTq6ysrF2Wv7W1xaKaopmcYravwMSlo6KflaOwpnnMnquaZZKuwaawwKeanmWoYrOir8SbpqijXZ67tMDAoKmapV2ptqzAzqRkqKiVo66qecyimquno6SztXnPq6adrZOperG7y6KropuRoXqisNWeqa2ho567qHnPnqmsp56WuW6wwK2YZpqVo7KntdOsZKeZpJ68r63LZqqem6WntrXF