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People in higher income countries are using AI more—but those in the highest income countries may also trust it less.
A recent report from the United Nations Development Programme examined attitudes on and usage of AI through a survey of more than 21,000 people in 21 countries across its spectrum of Human Development Index (HDI) scores.
In countries with low and medium HDI, only 14.4% of people reported AI use in health, education, or work within the last month. Around 23.6% answered similarly in high-HDI countries, a group that includes China, Brazil, and Indonesia. Around two in five (19%) reported using AI this way in very high HDI countries, like the US, most of Europe, Japan, and Korea.
But those in the first two groups of countries also expected to use AI much more in the next year—around two-thirds of respondents in each—while a more muted 45.9% expect to do so in very high income countries.
Trust gap: Bloomberg also reported, based on a yet-to-be-published piece of the research, that six in 10 people in developing countries, or those with less than “very high” HDI, trust that AI will ultimately benefit society, including 83% in China. And residents in two-thirds of countries “expressed some level of confidence” that AI could be a force for good.
The mood around AI is less optimistic in the wealthiest countries, however, Bloomberg reported. That includes the US, in which 37.5% of people had faith in AI’s potential for good, and Germany, where the number was 42.5%.
The report also found that people of all ages in very high HDI countries expect to lose control over their lives in the next five years because of AI, though younger people all over the world tend to feel this way less. People overall expect AI to augment their jobs more than to automate them.
Resources required: The report found that ChatGPT responses more closely mirror cultures of the highest income countries, a finding that aligns with research into linguistic diversity gaps in AI models. That culture mismatch is a result of the concentrated resources in the AI development pipeline, the report said.
“Combatting cultural and linguistic bias is one reason many countries desire to be part of the AI supply chain,” the report read. “AI supply depends on three key inputs—computing power, data, and talent—some of which are highly concentrated, posing unique challenges to many lower HDI countries.”
While the report doesn’t offer many answers as to why attitudes vary across different tiers of development, a New York Times feature last week dug into the new “digital divide” between the have and have-not countries in the AI arms race. More than half of the world’s AI data centers are concentrated in the US, the EU, and China, the Times reported, citing data from Oxford University researchers.