Preliminary analysis of AI quesions from WW25

Abby Bitterman

Support

How much would you support using AI for this task?

Support by use of AI

In the next plot, support is broken down by self-reported personal AI us. - Those who responded “never”, “less than once per week”, or “about once per week” (1, 2, or 3) were coded as “Not a regular AI user” (n = 814). - Those who responded “several times per week”, “about once a day”, or “several times a day” (4, 5, or 6) were coded as “Regular AI user” (n = 429).

Support by use of AI

Support by AI Familiarity

In the next plot, support is broken down by self-reported familiarity with the use of AI in the weather domain. - Those who responded “not at all familiar” or “slightly familiar” (1 or 2) were coded as “Not familiar” (n = 821). - Those who responded “moderately”, “very”, or “extremely familiar” (3, 4, or 5) were coded as “Familiar” (n = 423).

Support by AI Familiarity

Confidence in AI Accuracy

How confident are you that AI could perform this task accurately?

Confidence in AI to Consider Well-Being

How confident are you that AI would prioritize people’s safety and well-being when performing this task?

A Sample of Open-Ended Responses

Strongly oppose/Oppose respondents

  • “ai can make mistakes where a person would be more cautious”
  • “Data privacy and this can be done without AI, AI doesn’t fix everything”
  • “I am overall concerned and skeptical about the use of AI in our daily lives. I fear it will eventually lead to a lack of critical thinking.”
  • “I do not trust AI.” ~30x
  • “Lots of people depend on weather for safety. It should be in the hands of trusted experts not artificial intelligence.”

Mixed opinion respondents

  • “AI as I understand it is only as good as the information it receives.”
  • “AI is a useful tool. I am not confident that human safety is accounted for. It can also be biased depending on how it is trained.”
  • “Ai is fast, but weather isn’t just data-it’s context”
  • “Generally feel AI would be good for this, but I think it needs to be test much more before we rely on it to issue warnings of any sort, and then these need to be vetted by experts before announcing”
  • “I don’t know enough about AI” ~50x

Strongly support/Support respondents

  • “AI can process lots of historical data continuously and update forecasts if the wind were to change direction or speed abruptly.”
  • “I can get the information that I need quicker more efficiently than having to research multiple sources”
  • “I expect AI to be used widely in prediction and communications”
  • “Using ai will give more accurate forecast”
  • “If AI could aggregate many sources and give me a more complete forecast, I would definitely be in favor of using that”

More to come!