[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-160346-en":3,"doc-seo-160346-105":30,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":91},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":4,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":20,"is_downloadable":20,"audit_status":20,"page_count":21,"language":22,"language_code":23,"site_id":24,"html_lang":23,"table_of_contents":25,"faqs":26,"seo_title":27,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":28,"read_time":29},160346,137451211410,"\tCallum ","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/2000bb0a9246f588df?x-image-process=image/resize,m_fixed,w_180,h_180&k=1786362646172706240",8,"Research & Report","Rage Against the Machine? Generative AI Use, Subjective Risk, and Policy Preferences","Scholars studying how automation shapes policy preferences often rely on the idea that subjective risk drives demand for insurance. A pre-registered online experiment with 1,041 UK working-age adults tests whether direct exposure to generative AI changes this mechanism. Exposure does not raise subjective risk and improves attitudes toward the technology. Yet treated respondents show greater support for progressive social policy and identify more strongly with the political left, implying sociotropic concerns outweigh self-interest. Text analysis of open-ended answers further indicates thoughtful engagement with AI’s implications.","Rage Against the Machine? Generative AI Use, Subjective Risk,  \nand Policy Preferences  \nMatthias Haslberger University of St. Gallen  \nJane Gingrich University of Oxford  \nJasmine Bhatia Birkbeck, University of London  \nJuly 16, 2024  \nAbstract  \nScholars interested in the effect of automation on policy preferences have commonly argued that (subjective) risk predicts demand for insurance. Generative AI potentially challenges this dynamic. Based on a pre-registered online experiment with a near-representative sample of 1,041 UK working-age adults we show that direct exposure to generative AI does not increase subjective risk and leads to more positive attitudes towards the technology. Despite this, treated respondents show greater support for progressive social policy and place themselves politically further left, indicating that sociotropic preferences dominate self-interest. Text analysis of an open-ended question shows thoughtful engagement with the implications of AI. This article provides a first big-picture investigation of the political implications of generative AI and outlines avenues for further research.  \nWe are grateful for the feedback and support we received from Noah Bacine, Patrick Emmenegger, and Lukas Paleckis on the design of the survey, as well as to Simone Tonelli and participants of the GOVPET Advisory Board Meeting 2024, the Zurich Political Economy Seminar Series, the Freiburg Economics Research Seminar, the VPET-ECON Conference 2024, the SASE Conference 2024, and the CES Conference 2024 for feedback on various versions of the paper. All remaining errors are our own. This project has been funded in part by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) and the Schweizerisches Staatssekretariat für Bildung, Forschung und Innovation (SERI) in the framework of the GOVPET research project. The authors made use of ChatGPT (GPT-3.5 and GPT-4) in developing the code for various figures and to create example answers to the open-ended question to use for comparison.  \nCorresponding author: Matthias Haslberger ([matthias.haslberger@unisg.ch](matthias.haslberger@unisg.ch))  \nWord count: ca. 8,530  \nCompeting interests: The authors declare none.  \nData availability: The data will be made accessible on a suitable repository following acceptance of the manuscript.  \nIntroduction  \nDoes using generative AI make people or more less concerned about disruptive effects — either for their own jobs or those of others? How do people think the use of AI technology ought to be regulated by the government? As more people use generative AI at home and at work, the answers to these questions will have profound implications for the politics of advanced economies—shaping in turn the demand for social and labor market policies. While the public and academic discourse often highlights the possible dangers of generative AI — mass unemployment and political upheaval — little rigorous evidence currently exists as to how users respond to it, and even less is known about how AI use and socio-demographic characteristics interact to shape individuals’ perceptions, expectations, and preferences.  \nOur study addresses these questions using an experimental survey of a near-representative sample of 1,041 working-age adults in the UK. After randomizing respondents into a treatment and control group that perform three realistic work tasks either with or without the help of generative AI, we ask them about their risk perceptions, general attitudes towards generative AI, and social policy preferences. This study, fielded in July 2023, before the mass adoption of generative AI in most workplaces, allows us to observe the causal effects of exposure to technology in complex but realistic tasks on political preferences for a near-representative sample of the general population. As such, it complements existing studies that either examine occupation-specific samples (Dell’Acqua et al. , 2023 ; Noy and Zhang, 2023 ; Brynjolfsson, Li and Raymond, 2","cbCaivAT7YukOtMu","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaivAT7YukOtMu","pdf",657316,1,48,"English","en",105,"# Abstract\n# Introduction\n## Research questions and motivation\n## Experimental design and measures\n## Key findings and interpretation","[{\"question\":\"Does direct exposure to generative AI increase subjective risk among UK working-age adults?\",\"answer\":\"No. The study finds that exposure to generative AI does not increase subjective risk.\"},{\"question\":\"How does using generative AI affect attitudes toward the technology?\",\"answer\":\"AI exposure leads to more positive attitudes, including stronger perceived benefits to the self and society, and less support for viewing AI as a threat or for limiting its use.\"},{\"question\":\"What happens to political and social policy preferences after respondents receive AI help?\",\"answer\":\"Treated respondents express greater support for progressive social policy and identify as more politically left-wing, suggesting sociotropic concerns dominate self-interest.\"}]","Rage Against the Machine? 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