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Survey on AI finds most people want it regulated, but trust in government remains low

December 05, 2024

If you use social media, you’ve likely come across deepfakes. These are video or audio clips of politicians, celebrities or others manipulated using artificial intelligence (AI) to make it appear like the person is saying or doing something they haven’t actually said or done.

If you are freaked out by the idea of deepfakes, you are not alone. Our recent public opinion research conducted in British Columbia found that for 90 per cent of respondents, deepfakes are top of the list of major concerns with AI.

In October 2024, we at the Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University worked with a public opinion firm to conduct a poll of more than 1,000 randomly selected B.C. residents to better understand their views on AI. Specifically, we wanted to understand their awareness of AI and its perceived impacts, their attitudes towards it, and their views on what we should be doing about it as a society.

Overall, we found British Columbians to be reasonably knowledgeable about AI. A majority were able to correctly spot everyday technologies that use AI from a standardized list, and 54 per cent reported having personally used an AI system or tool to generate text or media. This suggests that a good portion of the population is engaged enough with the technology to be invited into a conversation about it.

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