Today, the digital association Bitkom published the latest results of a consumer survey on the issue of artificial intelligence (AI). The survey results show that the majority of German consumers see AI either exclusively (27 percent) or rather (45 percent) as an opportunity and that they could imagine its application in a wide range of fields such as medicine, education, administration or the police.
For this representative study, Bitkom Research on behalf of the digital association Bitkom surveyed a total of 1,003 people aged 16 and above in Germany about how they assessed AI.
These are further details:
- 72 percent of Germans said they considered AI exclusively (27 percent) or rather (45 percent) an opportunity. In contrast, 25 percent saw AI either exclusively (12 percent) or rather (13 percent) as a threat.
- 52 percent of respondents saw themselves as being able to explain AI well or even considered themselves an expert. 15 percent did not know exactly what AI meant, and five percent had not yet heard of AI at all.
- 28 percent of consumers would agree to the statement that AI has already noticeably changed our society today and 26 percent assumed that this would happen within the next 10 years. Only one percent felt that AI would not have an impact on society even in the distant future.
- Respondents could see the applications of AI-based systems in the following areas: Caring for the elderly when monitoring their health (77 percent), personal training when learning new languages (76 percent), support for doctors in diagnosing and finding suited therapies (73 percent), in public administration to faster process applications (71 percent), in the police for automatic hazard detection (69 percent) or in sports for more objective referee decisions (69 percent).
- Other areas would be service bots on the phone or online (63 percent), supporting teachers or lecturers with teaching material or grading (62 percent), in HR departments for managing applicants (61 percent) or in the military for evaluating satellite images (56 percent).
- By contrast, there is no majority in favor of the use of AI in courts for evaluating trial documents (48 percent), infant care (45 percent), counselling in financial and insurance matters (44 percent) or as virtual contacts in relationships (31 percent).
Achim Berg, Bitkom President, commented: "Artificial intelligence is a key technology that we already encounter many times in our everyday lives - from voice assistants on smartphones to route planning. With advances in speech and image recognition in particular, AI-based systems will become increasingly important in virtually all areas of life. In Germany, we should seize the opportunities and become pioneers in AI development. Above all, this also requires a data strategy that creates a legal framework for using data in a way that promotes innovation."
Source: Bitkom
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