Abstract
We have examined the attitude and moral perception of 228 college students (63 Japanese and 165 non-Japanese) towards artificial intelligence (AI) in an international university in Japan. The students were asked to select a single most significant ethical issue associated with AI in the future from a list of nine ethical issues suggested by the World Economic Forum, and to explain why they believed that their chosen issues were most important. The majority of students (n = 149, 65%) chose unemployment as the major ethical issue related to AI. The second largest group of students (n = 29, 13%) were concerned with ethical issues related to emotional AI, including the impact of AI on human behavior and emotion. The paper discusses the results in detail and concludes that, while policymakers must consider how to ameliorate the impact of AI on employment, AI engineers need to consider the emotional aspects of AI in research and development, as well.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adikari A, Alahakoon D (2020) Understanding citizens emotional pulse in a smart city using artificial intelligence. IEEE TransacInd Inform. https://doi.org/10.1109/TII.2020.3009277
Anderson J, Rainie L, Luchsinger A (2018) Artificial intelligence and the future of humans. Pew research center. https://www.elon.edu/docs/e-web/imagining/surveys/2018_survey/AI_and_the_Future_of_Humans_12_10_18.pdf
Bartneck C, Suzuki N (2005) Subtle expressivity for characters and robots. Int J Hum Comput Stud 62(2):159–160. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2004.11.004
Bartneck C, Suzuki T, Kanda T, Nomura T (2007) The influence of people’s culture and prior experiences with Aibo on their attitude towards robots. AI Soc 21(1):217–230. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-006-0052-7
Bessen JE (2016) How computer automation affects occupations: Technology, jobs, and skills. Boston University School of Law, law and economics research paper: (15–49)
Boddington P (2017) Towards a code of ethics for artificial intelligence. Springer, Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60648-4
Bossman J (2016) Top 9 ethical issues in artificial intelligence. World economic forum. Genève, Switzerland. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/10/top-10-ethical-issues-in-artificial-intelligence/
Bostrom N (2014) Superintelligence: paths, dangers, strategies. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Brougham D, Haar J (2017) Smart technology, artificial intelligence, robotics, and algorithms (STARA): employees’ perceptions of our future workplace. J Manag Organ 24(2):239–257. https://doi.org/10.1017/jmo.2016.55
Cyert RM, Mowery DC (1987) Technology and employment. Innovation and growth in the US economy. National Academy Press, Washington, DC
Dailey MN, Cottrell GW, Padgett C, Adolphs R (2002) EMPATH: a neural network that categorizes facial expressions. J CognNeurosci 14(8):1158–1173. https://doi.org/10.1162/089892902760807177
Davenport TH, Kirby J (2016) Only humans need apply: winners and losers in the age of smart machines. Harper Business, New York, NY
Fazzin S (2019) The future of emotions in the workplace: the role of artificial intelligence in modern personnel management. IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-8398-1.ch009
Feinerer I (2019) Introduction to the tm Package Text Mining in R. The Comprehensive R Archive Network. https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/tm/vignettes/tm.pdf
Future of Life Institute (2017) Asilomar Conference on Beneficial AI. https://ai-ethics.com/2017/08/11/future-of-life-institute-2017-asilomar-conference/
Honda (2002) Asimo. http://www.honda.co.jp/ASIMO/
Ivanhoe P (2020) How Confucius loses face in China’s new surveillance regime. Aeon, Psyche. https://aeon.co/ideas/how-confucius-loses-face-in-chinas-new-surveillance-regime
Jockers M (2017) Introduction to the Syuzhet Package. The Comprehensive R Archive Network. https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/syuzhet/vignettes/syuzhet-vignette.html
Korinek A, Stiglitz JE (2018) Artificial intelligence and its implications for income distribution and unemployment. NBER Chapters. In: The economics of artificial intelligence: an agenda. National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc., pp 349–390
Kovacic M (2018) The making of national robot history in Japan: monozukuri, enculturation and cultural lineage of robots. Crit Asian Stud 50(4):572–590. https://doi.org/10.1080/14672715.2018.1512003
Kurzweil R (2005) The singularity is near: when humans transcend biology. Viking Adult, New York
Kurzweil Network (2017) Beneficial AI conference develops ‘Asilomar AI principles. http://www.kurzweilai.net/beneficial-ai-conference-develops-asilomar-ai-principles-to-guide-future-ai-research
Liang Y, Lee SA (2017) Fear of autonomous robots and artificial intelligence: evidence from national representative data with probability sampling. Int J Soc Robot 3:379–384. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-017-0401-3
Lima G, Kim C, Ryu S, Jeon C, Cha M (2020) Collecting the Public Perception of AI and Robot Rights. arXiv preprint
Mantello P (2016) The machine that ate bad people: The ontopolitics of the precrime assemblage. Big Data Soc. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951716682538
Marchant GE, Stevens YA, Hennessy JM (2014) Technology, unemployment and policy options: navigating the transition to a better world. J EvolutTechnol 24(1):26–44
McStay A (2018) Emotional AI: the rise of empathic media. Sage Publishing, London
McStay A (2020) Emotional AI, soft biometrics and the surveillance of emotional life: an unusual consensus on privacy. Big Data Soc. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951720904386
Meyer D, Hornik K, Feinerer I (2008) Text mining infrastructure in R. J Stat Softw 25(5):1–54
Mohammad SM, Turney D (2013) Crowdsourcing a word–emotion association lexicon. ComputIntell 29(3):436–465
Nadarzynski T, Miles O, Cowie A, Ridge D (2019) Acceptability of artificial intelligence (AI)-led chatbot services in healthcare: a mixed-methods study. Digital Health 5:2055207619871808. https://doi.org/10.1177/2055207619871808
Nilsson NJ (1985) Artificial intelligence, employment, and income. Hum SystManag 5(2):123–135. https://doi.org/10.3233/hsm-1985-5205
Ortony A (2003) On making believable emotional agents believable. In: Trapple RP (ed) Emotions in humans and artefacts. MIT Press, Cambridge
Pinto dos Santos D, Giese D, Brodehl S et al (2019) Medical students’ attitude towards artificial intelligence: a multicentre survey. EurRadiol 29(4):1640–1646. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00330-018-5601-1
Pol E, Reveley J (2017) Robot induced technological unemployment: towards a youth-focused coping strategy. Psychosociol Issue human Res Manag 5(2):169–186
Russell S, Dewey D, Tegmark M (2015) Research priorities for robust and beneficial artificial intelligence. AI Mag 36(4):105–114
Sarwar S, Dent A, Faust K et al (2019) Physician perspectives on integration of artificial intelligence into diagnostic pathology. npj Digital Medicine 2(1):28. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-019-0106-0
Shen C, Li C, Xu F et al (2020) Web-based study on Chinese dermatologists’ attitudes towards artificial intelligence. Ann Translat Med 8:698. https://doi.org/10.21037/atm.2019.12.102
Sit C, Srinivasan R, Amlani A et al (2020) Attitudes and perceptions of UK medical students towards artificial intelligence and radiology: a multicentre survey. Insights into Imaging 11(1):14. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13244-019-0830-7
Tegmark M (2017) Life 3.0: being human in the age of artificial intelligence. Knopf, New York
Vallverdú J, Casacuberta D (2009) Handbook of research on synthetic emotions and sociable robotics: new applications in affective computing and artificial intelligence. IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-60566-354-8
Vuong QH, Ho MT, Nguyen HK et al (2020) On how religions could accidentally incite lies and violence: folktales as a cultural transmitter. Palgrave Communications 6(1):82. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-020-0442-3
Wagner C (2009) ‘The Japanese way of robotics’: interacting ‘naturally’ with robots as a national character? RO-MAN 2009. The 18th IEEE IntSymp Robot Human Interact Commun. https://doi.org/10.1109/roman.2009.5326221
Wilkinson R, Marmot M (2003) Social determinants of health: the solid facts. 2nd edition. https://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/98438/e81384.pdf
Zhang B, Dafoe A (2019) Artificial intelligence: American attitudes and trends. SSRN 3312874. https://ssrn.com/abstract=3312874 or https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3312874
Acknowledgements
This study received support from “Emotional AI in Cities: Cross Cultural Lessons from UK and Japan on Designing for an Ethical Life” funded by JST-UKRI Joint Call on Artificial Intelligence and Society (2019).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ghotbi, N., Ho, M.T. & Mantello, P. Attitude of college students towards ethical issues of artificial intelligence in an international university in Japan. AI & Soc 37, 283–290 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-021-01168-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-021-01168-2