'I trust AI the way a sailor trusts the sea. It can carry you far, or it can drown you': Poll results reveal majority do not trust AI

Everywhere we turn, we are reminded of the rapid advances that artificial intelligence (AI) is making. As the technology continues to evolve, it raises an important question: Can we really trust it?

Trusting AI can mean many things — from letting it recommend a TV show to watch to relying on it for medical advice or putting it in charge of your car. On Aug. 29 we shared a poll asking Live Science readers where they stand on AI's trustworthiness — and 382 people responded.

At the time of writing, the results show that only 13% believe they can trust AI and that it will improve their lives, while 55% expressed no trust in AI to act safely or fairly. Around 32% were unsure and wanted stronger safeguards before making up their mind.

User comments suggested that readers are cautious about AI and expressed concerns about accuracy, autonomy and the limitations of the current technology. "Artificial general intelligence is still a work of fiction and always will be - nothing that Sam Altman [CEO of OpenAI] or any of the LLM shills have to say will ever change that," wrote BeneathTheClay.

Some commenters highlighted what they believe are LLMs' limitations.

"We don’t trust [large language models] LLMs, nor do we think the fundamental technology can ever become an 'AI' to any degree whatsoever," Varian commented. They added that"the fundamental truth is that LLMs have no concept of time, past, present, or future. A request is processed, the process is handled, and further requests can have previous requests force-fed back to it until it runs out of available ram. That’s the [entirety] of it."

Others suggested that LLMS are unlikely to ever be fully intelligent.

"AI is just about automation, the knowledge humans have acquired so far stored in computers is automatically retrieved on our request. I see no intelligence in AI," Jose p.koshy said. "We can trust it as long as our request to AI is unambiguous and pertains to data only. We cannot leave the decision making process to AI."

Some readers took a more philosophical look at the rapid growth of AI and LLMs.

"I trust Ai the way a sailor trusts the sea. It can carry you far, or it can drown you," Huhnverloren wrote. "We have a chance, maybe just one, to get it right. So, how do we want to receive the reflection of its mind?"