Canadians are split on the benefits of driverless cars as many still value the input of a real person, according to a study from OpenText. The research is based on the response of 2,000 Canadians from an online survey, which looks at Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how it is being implemented today.
Research shows that while the majority of Canadians are not worried about technologies like AI and machine learning — or at least, they are not worried about losing their job to a robot, some citizens are less comfortable with the idea.
The study suggests that 48 per cent of Canadians think autonomous vehicles help make the roads safer, and within this group, 31 per cent believed it is because they fully obey the traffic laws. A small percentage (10 per cent) think these vehicles will only make highways safer, and 7 per cent say it will make roads safer only in towns and cities.
Of the Canadians that are less enthusiastic about self-driving cars, 50 per cent of them would not even consider buying or renting one if the autonomous vehicle were priced similarly to that of a “normal” vehicle. Many are also wary of AI’s ability “to make better decisions than elected representatives if used in government,” according to the research. And 33 per cent say the technology “would not make better decisions because it can’t assess cultural aspects.”
Even as Canadians are divided, many (37 per cent) are not aware of having interacted with AI technology within the last year. However, they do foresee the technology being implemented in some way in the government sector within the next year or two.
