Public discourse comprises many different ideas and opinions about artificial intelligence. However, decision-makers in politics, business and society should be aware of what people think with regard to shaping technology in such a way that it is compatible with society and democracy. The Opinion Monitor Artificial Intelligence will provide a long-term and reliable picture of the public debate.
In discussions about digitalization and artificial intelligence (AI), people often use individual observations of public opinion and opinion published in the mass media to strengthen their own position, despite this use seldom being based on a systematic and continuous observation of the discourse. Moreover, a look at various demoscopic studies shows that insights into attitudes towards AI are by no means uniform. For example, the Eurobarometer (2017) points to a rather positive attitude of the population towards AI technologies, and a bitkom survey (2018) shows that the majority of respondents believe that AI offers opportunities in innovation. Elsewhere, however, risk perceptions predominate, both in general and in relation to specific fields of application (YouGov 2018).
However, there does not yet exist for the German region a long-term study of public opinion that enables us to compare developments and to analyze how opinion changes. It is precisely this gap that the project Opinion Monitor Artificial Intelligence [MeMo:KI] will close, its focus being on artificial intelligence as a key technology identified in the digitalization debate.
The importance and extent of the digital transformation has led in the political arena to a focus among other things on the social and democratic compatibility of technology. Institutions position themselves in various papers from the state to the EU level with the claim that they are focused on people and on a European path to AI based on ethical principles. If policymakers take their own claim seriously, then they depend on the support of an active and enlightened civil society that contributes its needs and ideas to the shaping of digitalization policy in a mature and autonomous manner. Otherwise, the development and implementation of AI technologies will remain the preserve of the economic sector, whose primary goal is to maximize profits and increase efficiency.
