Interaction with AI robots: machine translators, text generators, chatbots & co - an empirical study among first-year students
Sabine Seufert, Lukas Spirgi, Jan Delcker, Joana Heil, Dirk Ifenthaler · Empirische Pädagogik · 2024
Artificial Intelligence (AI) increasingly influences people's lives by fostering enhanced interaction between humans and machines (Kim, 2022). AI robots are considered agents that undertake tasks traditionally performed by humans through AI programming. There are two categories of AI robots: those with human-like performance and those with human-like appearance for social interaction. Based on this concept, seven specific use cases were developed for this study. An online survey conducted among students (N = 636) in September 2022 (shortly before the release of ChatGPT) examined both the frequency of usage and the ethical evaluation of each of the seven use cases by students. Additionally, a risk and an opportunity index were formed to assess students' general perception of AI. The perceived risks outweigh the recognized opportunities. The frequency of students' usage of AI robot types is generally considered relatively low. The acceptance of ethical principles varies depending on the kind of AI robot, with students particularly valuing fairness for AI robots involved in (human-like) text generation and transparency for AI robots engaged in human-like social interactions.