Majority of Dutch worried AI will increase misinformation, cybercrime
The majority of Dutch people do not trust artificial intelligence (AI). 60 percent fear that more people will be scammed online, and two-thirds predict an increase in fake news as a result of the technology, AD reports from the AI barometer by market research agency MSI-ACI Europe.
The researchers surveyed a thousand Dutch people on how they felt about AI and the opportunities and dangers of using it in private life, at work, and in school. They found mostly mistrust. Only 9 percent of Netherlands residents think AI makes life significantly safer. Concerns about misinformation and cybercrime are much more prevalent.
Two-thirds of Dutch people want the government to be much more active in monitoring and regulating AI. An equally large group is in favor of the European Union banning AI apps that classify people based on behavior or personal characteristics.
Despite these concerns, a third of Dutch people also see opportunities with AI, for example, in solving staff shortages, and 40 percent are neutral about the technology. Especially the younger generations see the advantages.
Only one in five Dutch people use AI privately with any regularity. And when they do, it is mainly for texts, automatic translations, and facial recognition on their smartphones.
Felienne Hermans, a professor of computer science at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, is surprised how many people see the risks of AI. She calls their concerns not unfounded. WhatsApp fraud, for example, can become even more sophisticated with AI. “If your child’s voice is used, we might fall for it much more easily. And I’m still talking about the small, personal scale, while these kinds of things can also be used in the public, political debate.”
With the current AI technology, it is already easy to make a video in which a politician says something they didn’t. 72 percent of Dutch people are concerned about such deepfakes spreading misinformation. It is also possible to clone someone’s voice in a telephone conversation.
Hermans understands the concerns but worries about the growing social impact of AI and people’s uncertainty about the technology. “Because what will it do to us if we have to think about whether every image is real? That takes a lot of time and above all creates a culture of distrust,” she told the newspaper.
