Skip to main content current edition: International edition The Guardian - Back to home Become a supporter Subscribe Find a job Jobs Sign in Search Show More Close with google sign in become a supporter subscribe search find a job dating more from the guardian: change edition: edition International edition The Guardian - Back to home browse all sections close Artificial intelligence (AI) Artificial intelligence survey finds UK public broadly optimistic Support for ‘machine learning’ depended on what it would be used for, with mass unemployment among main fears Ipsos Mori found a two-thirds of the UK public believe the benefits of machine learning outweighed the risks or were balanced.
 of machine learning outweighed the risks or were balanced.
 Photograph: Nic Delves-Broughton/PA Artificial intelligence (AI) Artificial intelligence survey finds UK public broadly optimistic Support for ‘machine learning’ depended on what it would be used for, with mass unemployment among main fears Ian Sample Science editor @iansample Tue 25 Apr ‘17 00.
01 BST Last modified on Tue 25 Apr ‘17 00.
02 BST This article is 9 months old Apart from fears of mass unemployment, accidents with machinery, restrictions on freedom, increased economic inequality and a devalued human experience, the public are broadly optimistic about the arrival of artificial intelligence, according to one of the first surveys of British opinions about the technology.
 Research by the polling firm Ipsos Mori found nearly a third of people believe the risks of “machine learning” outweigh the benefits, while 36% believe the risks and benefits are balanced.
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 Told of a computer system that might try to rein in people who overspend, one participant in Oxford said: “I feel like I’d want to buy the shoes just to spite it.
” The Royal Society report raises a host of other challenges that will come with the arrival of artificial intelligence.
 Jürgen Schmidhuber on the robot future​: ‘They will pay as much attention to us as we do to ants' Read more Artificial intelligence systems can pick up biases from training data, making them racist and sexist, and cannot always explain their decisions, both issues that scientists must work on, the report states.
 Meanwhile, tech firms are poaching some key UK academics, leaving universities struggling to keep the best minds.