Much Of The World Puts Its Trust In AI

In less than a year, we have moved from “AI as a tool” to “AI as trusted advisor.”

So concludes a study from the Collective Intelligence Project on Human-AI relationships. A global survey of over a thousand people from 70 countries found that in that short of a time, “AI moved from task tool to emotional infrastructure”

According to the report, “People are increasingly outsourcing emotional support or personal issues to AI.” Furthermore, “People now trust AI companions more than almost any institution.”

In yesterday’s post, we cited a statistic from this study that Brad Littlejohn referred to: 42.8% of the people surveyed from around the world said that they use AI at least once a week for “emotional support or personal issues.”

Here are more details from the report:

15% of our global sample are using AI for emotional support on a daily basis.
Nearly 1 in 5 people consider it acceptable to form a romantic relationship with an AI.
More than 1 in 10 would personally consider it.
More than 1 in 5 people say that if AI emotional support made them feel better that they would likely come to rely regularly on that support.
One in three believe their AI showed consciousness at some point.

The study also found that people trust AI more than they do their government, elective officials, and major corporations:

38% trust AI to make better decisions on their behalf than government representatives.
50% trust their AI chatbot to act in their best interest.
AI chatbots rank higher in trust than elected officials and major corporations.

Oddly, the public trusts AI chatbots, but not the companies that make them! People seem oblivious to the fact that the companies that design and set the algorithms for AI are determining what the chatbots are saying.

The researchers, though, note that “whoever controls the systems people turn to for emotional support has significant influence over collective well-being and decision-making.” And that people trust artificial intelligence more than they do governing institutions poses a major challenge for democracy (bolds in the original):

This shift in institutional trust from human democratic systems to algorithmic ones may be one of the most significant institutional trust transfers in recent history. . . .

We are witnessing tremendous algorithmic influence without democratic accountability.

When people trust AI more than institutions but distrust AI companies, power flows to systems without democratic oversight.

Companies that build AI chatbots can shape behavior, influence decisions, and guide emotional processing, all while users actively distrust their intentions. . . .This leaves society in a position of democratic vulnerability.

This study focuses on the possible emotional and political dangers of putting one’s trust in AI. Even more serious, I would argue, are the spiritual dangers.

In his explanation of the First Commandment in the Large Catechism, Luther asks, “What does it mean to have a god?” His answer:

A god means that from which we are to expect all good and to which we are to take refuge in all distress, so that to have a God is nothing else than to trust and believe Him from the [whole] heart; as I have often said that the confidence and faith of the heart alone make both God and an idol. If your faith and trust be right, then is your god also true; and, on the other hand, if your trust be false and wrong, then you have not the true God; for these two belong together, faith and God. That now, I say, upon which you set your heart and put your trust is properly your god.

Whatever you put your faith in–whatever you most trust–is your god. If you put your faith and trust in anything other than the true God revealed in Scripture, you are committing idolatry.

Luther gives examples. If you put your faith and trust in heathen deities, you are committing idolatry. But also if you are putting your faith and trust in money or possessions. “So, too, whoever trusts and boasts that he possesses great skill, prudence, power, favor, friendship, and honor has also a god, but not this true and only God.”

If he were writing today, Luther would surely say that if you “expect all good” from AI, “take refuge in all distress” by going to AI, look for guidance from AI, find your emotional support from AI–in short, if you put your trust and your faith in AI–then you have an artificial god.

Illustration: Points of Contact by Gerd Altmann via PublicDomainPictures.net, CC0 Public Domain