Artificial intelligence and automation are transforming the world, from the way we work to the way we consume news or choose products. While many may be excited about this technology’s potential, just as it happened in the industrial revolution, there is also much uncertainty about what its implementation may mean for different jobs or even on the personal level. However, general perceptions about it are influenced by both culture and one’s personal circumstances.

A study by Hinks (2024) took data from 2021’s Eurobarometer 95.2 and analyzed the relationship between life satisfaction and perception on artificial intelligence in a total of 38 countries, and found that life satisfaction is closely related to individuals’ opinion of new technologies in general: the higher the satisfaction, the better the opinion, while low satisfaction correlates with a more negative view of these products. 

Two Examples: United States and China

In other research by Wu et al. (2020), the implicit and explicit perception of artwork in Chinese and U.S. individuals was studied. As part of their cross-national study, researchers used a traditional questionnaire about the attitudes that participants believed to hold towards AI-generated or human-made content, and then analyzed the content of those responses. The survey consisted of viewing an image or reading a poem (in English or Chinese), each of which could be either created traditionally or by an AI.

Chinese participants’ attitudes toward AI were generally more positive than those of Americans, although the evaluation was similar in both cases. The latter assigned worse ratings to AI in terms of imagination, empathy and competence and adopted a less neutral tone, either positive or negative, towards human-created content. They were also less empathetic and emotional when expressing their opinions regarding AI.

By contrast, Chinese participants gave better ratings to AI than to human creations in terms of imagination, although they saw more symbolism in human-made works. Similarly, those who read the poem considered the AI one to be of higher quality, being more imaginative, empathetic, and showing greater written competence. These results regarding symbolism lead the researchers to think of a certain contradiction between the implicit and explicit attitude of the Chinese respondents. 

Large-Scale Survey

In another more recent and larger-scale study, Dong et al. (2024) surveyed significant samples (in terms of gender and age) from five hundred participants in each of twenty selected countries* deemed representative of different regions of the globe. Participants first assessed the psychological requirements for six different professions (journalists, clergy, managers, social workers, judges, and doctors), the potential for AI in those fields, and their own fears about AI.

In addition to providing a picture about the psychological expectations of each of the professions assessed, this study documents the perceptions about eight of these psychological traits in each of the countries, and compares them to their perceived potential. Among the findings, the study highlights how AI seems to cause the most fear in India, Saudi Arabia and the United States, while the countries that fear it the least are Turkey, Japan and China (which is consistent with the results from Wu et al.’s study for the U.S. and China). Nevertheless, all countries show the greatest fear (first or second place) about AIs acting as judges. In contrast, AI journalists are the least feared in seventeen of the twenty countries. Among other results, this study found a relationship between the AI’s ability to meet the psychological expectations for each profession and a decrease in the fear towards this technology.

Countries included in the study: GErmany, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Brasil, Canada, China, South Korea, United States, France, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Nigeria, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Russia, Singapore, South Africa and Turkey).

Conclusion

These studies are just a small sample of some of the ways in which, not only the country we live in, but our satisfaction with life can influence our perspective; in this case, regarding the various applications of new technologies such as artificial intelligence. In today’s world, where AI is advancing exponentially, understanding these dynamics is crucial to designing policies and technologies that are not only innovative, but also inclusive and empathetic.

References

Dong, M., Conway, J. R., Bonnefon, J.-F., Shariff, A., & Rahwan, I. (2024). Fears about artificial intelligence across 20 countries and six domains of application. American Psychologist. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0001454

Hinks, T. (2024). Artificial Intelligence Perceptions and Life Satisfaction. Journal of Happiness Studies, 25(1–2), 5. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-024-00727-w

Wu, Y., Mou, Y., Li, Z., & Xu, K. (2020). Investigating American and Chinese Subjects’ explicit and implicit perceptions of AI-Generated artistic work. Computers in Human Behavior, 104, 106186. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.106186