Impacts of Attitudes Toward Government and Corporations on Public Trust in Artificial Intelligence

ABSTRACT

Artificial intelligence (AI) has alarmed the society of Taiwan believing it is responsible for potential surveillance, data theft and abuse, and other privacy infringements. By adopting the theory of motivated reasoning, this study explores how Taiwanese people’s perceptions of AI are affected by their institutional trust, attitudes toward the government and corporations, which are the two most common sponsors of scientific development. First, findings establish that respondents’ science trust in AI is made up of perceptions of AI and its science community, and they have lower faith in the AI science community than in AI alone. Second, the perceptions of both AI and its science community are positively associated with trust in government and corporations. Third, scientific news has a direct bearing on AI trust, but not on either government or corporation trust. By contrast, political news has no effect on either trust in AI or its science community, yet trust in government and corporations mediates the influence of political news on trust in AI and its science community. Finally, demographic variables hardly predict trust in AI, AI science community, government, and corporations, but education and gender are directly related to news consumption, which further influences institutional and science trust.

KEYWORDS:

• Motivated reasoning
• news consumption
• science community
• political orientations
• sponsors of scientific research

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan [MOST106-2511-S-004-003-MY3].

Notes on contributors

Yi-Ning Katherine Chen

Yi-Ning Katherine Chen (PhD, The University of Texas at Austin, USA) is a Professor of the Communication College at National Chengchi University (NCCU), Taiwan. Since 2014, she has been on secondment as Commissioner at the National Communications Commission. She was Associate Dean of the Communication College at NCCU between 2010 and 2014, as well as Vice Chair of the Chinese Communication Society between 2012 and 2014. She also was a panel review committee member in Taiwan’s Ministry of Science and Technology, in an advisory and consultative capacity to the Ministry of Science and Technology, and an external reviewer for the Research Grants Council in Hong Kong, on the Editorial Advisory Board of Asian Journal of Communication, and on the editorial Board of the Journal of Communication Research and Practices. Professor Chen has spoken at various regulatory forums and international academic conferences in Europe, USA, and Asia, in which topics were focusing on the Internet users’ behavior and pay TV versus OTT TV regulations.

Chia-Ho Ryan Wen

Chia-Ho Ryan Wen is a PhD Fellow of the S. I. Newhouse School at Syracuse University, U.S., and previously graduated from the London School of Economics and Political Science, U.K. Primarily employing quantitative methods, his research based on behavioral science has recently focused on health intervention (investigating the frames and dissemination of health messages, including their relationships with health literacy and influences on help-seeking behavior), science communication (analyzing the divergent perceptions of emerging technologies between laypeople and experts shaped by how they access technology information and approach scientific knowledge), as well as mobile device application (characterizing mobile device uses developed in response to echo chambers, privacy infringements, misinformation, and the dynamics of social ties in virtual communities).