Jayden Ramirez de Arellano, Dominique Davis, Conrad Liszka, Haley Narita, Cesar Sandoval, & Dr. Weldon Zane Smith
Study in fear of artificial intelligence has found correlation with fear of loneliness, use of drones, and unemployment. The items seemed probing with “How afraid”, “replacing”, and “trusting” being used. However, a great portion (38.6%) of the participants claimed to be afraid of artificial intelligence. They also found that fear of autonomous robots and artificial intelligence was positively correlated with fear of loneliness (r(1480) = .25, p < .001). The first hypothesis is how the threat of artificial intelligence is impacted by loneliness and a manipulation of artificial intelligence. My second hypothesis is that loneliness will impact the threat of artificial intelligence. We are running a survey using Qualtrics and our participants will be recruited from CloudResearch which was formerly known as Amazon Turkprime. We have funds to collect 1000 to 1700 participants. Our current study will use the Loneliness-Deprivation Scale and an adapted Threats of Artificial Intelligence Scale (TAIS). The Interaction portion of the TAIS will be used in correlation with loneliness. The subsection surveys how threatening AI is in social aspects to the participant. They will take a survey that has been manipulated by my research team. The participants will be randomly assorted into three categories. The first group will receive no manipulation and will be used as a control group. The second group will be told that artificial intelligence has been used in helping create the first half of the survey, but was ultimately created by us (the researchers). The third group will be told that the entire first half of the survey was created completely by artificial intelligence. After the groups have completed the first half of the survey about demographics, personality, loneliness, job satisfaction, and financial worry they will receive a manipulation by us, telling them about the AI intervention in reference to group two and three. Artificial intelligence has not been used to create any of the survey and has been accepted by the IRB. I expect the participants in group three to have the highest AI threat levels and to be affected to a greater extent when scoring high on the loneliness scale.