EA - Paper Summary: The Effectiveness of AI Existential Risk Communication to the American and Dutch Public by Otto

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Paper Summary: The Effectiveness of AI Existential Risk Communication to the American and Dutch Public, published by Otto on March 9, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum.This is a summary of the following paper by Alexia Georgiadis (Existential Risk Observatory):Thanks to @Lara Mani, @Karl von Wendt, and Alexia Georgiadis for their help in reviewing and writing this post. Any views expressed in this post are not necessarily theirs.The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) has evoked both positive and negative sentiments due to its immense potential and the inherent risks associated with its evolution. There are growing concerns that if AI surpasses human intelligence and is not aligned with human values, it may pose significant harm and even lead to the end of humanity. However, the general publics' knowledge of these risks is limited. As advocates for minimising existential threats, the Existential Risk Observatory believes it is imperative to educate the public on the potential risks of AI. Our introductory post outlines some of the reasons why we hold this view (this post is also relevant). To increase public awareness of AI's existential risk, effective communication strategies are necessary.This research aims to assess the effectiveness of communication interventions currently being used to increase awareness about AI existential risk, namely news publications and videos. To this end, we conducted surveys to evaluate the impact of these interventions on raising awareness among participants.MethodologyThis research aims to assess the effectiveness of different media interventions, specifically news articles and videos, in promoting awareness of the potential dangers of AI and its possible impact on human extinction. It analyses the impact of AI existential risk communication strategies on the awareness of the American and Dutch populations, and investigates how social indicators such as age, gender, education level, country of residence, and field of work affect the effectiveness of AI existential risk communication.The study employs a pre-post design, which involves administering the same intervention and assessment to all participants and measuring their responses at two points in time. The research utilises a survey method for collecting data, which was administered to participants through an online Google Forms application. The survey consists of three sections: pre-test questions, the intervention, and post-test questions.The effectiveness of AI existential risk communication is measured by comparing the results of quantitative questions from the pre-test and post-test sections, and the answers to the open-ended questions provide further understanding of any changes in the participant's perspective. The research measures the effectiveness of the media interventions by using two main indicators: "Human Extinction Events" and "Human Extinction Percentage."The "Human Extinction Events" indicator asks participants to rank the events that they believe could cause human extinction in the next century, and the research considers it as effective if participants rank AI higher post intervention or mention it after the treatment when they did not mention it before. If the placement of AI remained the same before and after the treatment, or if participants did not mention AI before or after the treatment, the research considered that there was no effect in raising awareness.The "Human Extinction Percentage" indicator asks for the participants' opinion on the likelihood, in percentage, of human extinction caused by AI in the next century. If there was an increase in the percentage of likelihood given by participants, this research considered that there was an effect in raising awareness. If there is no change or a decrease in the percentage, this r...