Study of the Knowledge and Impact of Artificial Intelligence on an Academic Community

摘要

The lack of an established and universally accepted definition for Artificial Intelligence (AI) leads to a nonexistence of ideological boundaries which, by itself, partly explains its current fast-growing rate. The Nils J. Nilsson AI's definition stated that Artificial Intelligence is "... an activity dedicated to the construction of intelligent machines" while Intelligence itself is "(...) the quality that allows an entity to work properly provisioned within its environment". However, the lack of consensus related to the definition of AI does not mean by itself that public opinion on the matter is also divided. In that sense, the present paper aims to study the knowledge and impact of AI on an academic community. The objectives of the study are to (i) understand which are the means used to collect information regarding AI (ii) identify the depth of knowledge amongst the respondents, (iii) identify the perceptions about AI's applications and impacts on society. Based on a sample of 89 respondents, the results highlighted a connection between the educational stage and the AI knowledge. In fact, respondents with higher academic backgrounds showed deeper knowledge on AI, also recognizing current worldwide projects on Robotics. At the same time, and about AI's social, economical and technological aspects, different views towards the awareness were obtained. No association of these characteristics with gender. The preliminary results show that Artificial Intelligence is relevant for further studies and, with a large sample, could enable a deeper understanding of the impacts of technological evolution in the field of robotics.