Announcement of AI Survey Results: Investigation into Reliability, Ethics, etc.
Security concerns persist alongside trust; AI recognition also verified

After Lee Sedol 9-dan suffered a crushing defeat against Google's AlphaGo last March, China's Ke Jie 9-dan, the current top human Go player, confidently asserted that his probability of defeating artificial intelligence was over 60%. However, AlphaGo, having honed its skills for another year, had become even stronger. This is likely the reason why Ke Jie bowed his head and called it a "god" after facing AlphaGo. Now, the learning capabilities of artificial intelligence demonstrated in Go will be rapidly applied to all aspects of human life. In some respects, it will make our lives very convenient, while in others, it will evoke fear in humans. Accordingly, E4ds News has chosen "Artificial Intelligence" as the starting topic for its [Survey Series]. We were curious to know how deeply artificial intelligence, which has begun to expand rapidly in recent years, has permeated our lives, what aspects of AI we fear, and what ethical issues we share. This survey was conducted for about a month from May 24 to June 23, and a total of 114 industry professionals, including engineers and managers, participated. <Editor's Note>

How much do people trust artificial intelligence (AI)?

It was found that if decisions by artificial intelligence (AI) had to be accepted, the medical field received the most trust, while at the same time, there were many concerns regarding 'safety' in the form of AI judging humans as animals or enemies.

According to a recent survey on artificial intelligence conducted by this magazine (AI that even made Ke Jie cry, what do you think?), when asked in which case they would have the most trust if they had to accept an AI decision, 36.8% of respondents flocked to the medical field (disease diagnosis and prescription). This was followed by investment-related stock finance at 22.8%, autonomous vehicles at 21%, and court rulings at 19.3%.

It is speculated that this was heavily influenced by the case of Gachon University Gil Medical Center, which introduced and operated IBM’s artificial intelligence Watson for the first time in Korea last December (our article from February 21: Gil Medical Center, which introduced Watson, “Humans have started to trust artificial intelligence”). Furthermore, it was notable that there was growing trust in stock predictions, which are equally strong in data analysis, and in autonomous vehicles, whose technology is rapidly advancing, as well as significant confidence in AI-powered court rulings.
In contrast, concerns regarding terrorism, ethics, and job displacement existed alongside the trust placed in artificial intelligence. In the survey, more than half of the respondents (52.6%) cited cyber terrorism as the most concerning threat of AI-assisted terrorism as AI develops. This was followed by terrorism using drones (17.5%) and autonomous vehicles (14%). Terrorism involving robots (11.4%) and electromagnetic waves (4.4%) followed. This appears to reflect the possibility that cyber attacks, such as recent ransomware, could lead to a greater catastrophe when combined with AI, while also highlighting security vulnerabilities in advanced technologies like drones, autonomous vehicles, and robots.
Ethical issues also came under scrutiny. 34.2% of respondents were concerned about the safety and reliability of artificial intelligence, while issues regarding liability in the event of problems (23.7%) and misuse due to incorrect learning and judgment (17.7%) were also considered ethical concerns. Other concerns included human phobia regarding potential job loss (9.7%), privacy infringement (7.9%), and confusion regarding human identity caused by AI robots (7.9%). As such, one-third of respondents questioned reliability, and the remaining respondents also raised issues of accountability and misuse, emphasizing the ethical aspects of future AI technology development.

Will my job be replaced by AI? It's possible because of its superior learning ability.
There is a lot of opinion that aspects such as creativity and decision-making cannot be replaced by artificial intelligence.

The issue of jobs, which is invariably raised whenever artificial intelligence is discussed, was also brought up. As has already been pointed out from an ethical standpoint, human fear of unemployment coexists with the advancement of AI technology. In conclusion, the survey asked whether current jobs could be replaced by artificial intelligence within 10 years; 64% of respondents answered no, while the remaining 36% answered yes.


First, 75% of survey participants who answered that there is a possibility their jobs could be replaced by artificial intelligence cited the reason that this is entirely possible given the advancing learning capabilities of AI. The thinking is that as technology for analyzing and utilizing data becomes more intelligent, a significant portion of work could be replaced, going beyond mere convenience. In addition, 20% of them answered that their work could be sufficiently replaced by artificial intelligence because it is simple. In a broader sense, most respondents acknowledge or express concern that rapidly developing artificial intelligence can cover everything from simple tasks to complex tasks capable of data analysis.

On the other hand, respondents who believed that artificial intelligence would be difficult to replace jobs cited creativity (42%) as the reason. Their view is that due to the nature of the work, creativity is often required to plan and adapt to changing environments, a task that AI cannot replicate. Additionally, 19% of respondents argued that decision-making based on the individual's know-how or subjective judgment is difficult to replace with AI, while 18% maintained that relying solely on AI is challenging because the work involves direct interaction with people. Other opinions cited insufficient technology and the difficulty of understanding the complex and multifaceted nature of the work.

Products that effectively incorporate artificial intelligence technology include smartphones and voice recognition speakers.
Samsung Electronics and Google are cited first as domestic and international companies to lead artificial intelligence.

Meanwhile, this survey drew attention by investigating products and domestic and international companies that represent artificial intelligence technology. First, smartphones (34%) were selected as products that best reflect AI technology.


Smartphones are the most familiar devices to users, and with the recent enhancement of voice recognition technology, they seem to be perceived as 'AI devices in the hand.' Similarly, so-called AI speakers (33%) that control home IoT devices via voice recognition have rapidly emerged, and shopping assistant robots (14%) are also expanding their reach. In particular, the survey revealed that users currently perceive these AI devices as tools for daily convenience (71%) and further accept them as tools for work assistance (26%).

Samsung Electronics (35%) and Google (49%) were identified as the domestic and international IT companies that best implement artificial intelligence and are expected to lead the future market, respectively. Domestically, Naver, SK Telecom, and LG Electronics followed Samsung. Among overseas companies, Google took the lead, followed by IBM, Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft. It was also notable that no one selected Apple.