SIENNA PROJECT STUDY:
South Africans Polarised on Opinions around Robots, AI and Automation Findings from a report released by the EU-funded SIENNA project suggest that South Africans are hold “very polarised” opinions around robots, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the effects of intelligent machines and automation in society.
2ND QUARTER 2020
By Daniel Mpala
SYNAPSE
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THE SIENNA (Stakeholder-informed ethics for new technologies with high socio-economic and human rights impact) project seeks to develop ethical protocols and codes for human genomics, human enhancement, as well as AI and robotics. The report, which was published in October and can be accessed here, is a quantitative investigation of public views and awareness of artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, human enhancement and genomics.It is one of seven studies undertaken through the project which seeks to study the ethical, legal and social issues (ELSI) of the three technologies. The report’s aim was to provide a snapshot of opinions in 2019 on intelligent machines and their impact on society. The study was carried out by research firm Kantar which surveyed 11 000 respondents — 1000 each from France, Germany, Greece, Netherlands, Poland Spain, Sweden, Brazil, South Africa, South Korea, and the US — through telephonic interviews between March and April 2019. Brazil, South Africa, South Korea and the USA were included in the study to provide comparative insights. The report’s authors pointed out that relative to the other 10 countries in the study, South Africa stood out as a country with very polarised views on many measures. The authors attributed this to “extremely wide inequalities in society”. “There were several measures where South Africans were both among the most positive and the most negative. This is evident in the proportions of South Africans who: support vs oppose the idea of robots resembling humans in everyday life and as romantic partners; feel that intelligent machines will lead to more autonomy vs less autonomy; and feel that their country will be completely different vs not different at all. It is also notable that in all countries apart from South Africa, a majority considered that more widespread automation would lead to greater inequalities. In South Africa, a sizeable minority (21%, higher than all other countries) thought it would instead lead to reduced inequalities within their county,” the report stated. Continued on page 44
