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As companies develop their generative artificial intelligence tech – and cull data to train these tools directly from consumer input – they will potentially reach a tolerance limit from their users. Zoom experienced it firsthand earlier this week when the video platform adjusted its terms of service to no longer use customer video call data to train AI, following consumer backlash. They’ll be far from the last company to face this dilemma – and likely serve as a test case to gauge the public’s comfort levels with harvesting data to train AI programs.

CivicScience has constantly tracked consumer sentiment toward AI, since the debut of ChatGPT late last year, and concern levels have heavily fluctuated. But the percentage of U.S. adults reporting to be ‘not at all concerned’ about the proliferation of AI tools like ChatGPT has increased by six percentage points since the beginning of July (from 21% to 27%).

Since its popularity surge early in the pandemic, Zoom has faced its own data privacy and security concerns among users. According to the latest CivicScience data, these concerns have only increased over time. Just over 4-in-10 U.S. adults are currently at least ‘somewhat concerned’ about the data privacy of Zoom, which is up from 29% in April 2020.

These concerns about Zoom and AI tools like ChatGPT correlate strongly enough that the company was wise to tweak this approach. Over three-quarters of Zoom users ‘very concerned’ about the platform’s data privacy are at least ‘somewhat concerned’ about the proliferation of tools like ChatGPT. But even the most Zoom-trusting users still have their hesitations toward GPT – over half of Zoom users who are ‘not at all concerned’ about video chat privacy are at least ‘somewhat concerned’ about the proliferation of ChatGPT-like AI.

Meanwhile, U.S. adults are currently much more concerned about AI and technology replacing American jobs than they were in 2022. Over one-third of U.S. adults are ‘very concerned’ about AI replacing jobs in 2023, compared to 23% who said the same in 2022 (and overall concern is up to 80% from 70% last year).

Three more insights you need to know about AI sentiment and Zoom:

  • One-in-ten adults with an opinion on the matter think AI will have a ‘very positive’ impact on their quality of life over the next decade (up from 8% who said the same in March).
  • Zoom users are more likely than non-users to think AI will have a ‘positive’ impact on the next decade of their life (38% compared to 25% of non-users).
  • Americans who are at least ‘somewhat happy’ in their current job are less likely to think AI will positively impact their life in the next decade than those who are at least ‘somewhat unhappy’ with their current job (31% and 37%, respectively).

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