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A New Survey Shows Consumers Are Not That Freaked Out By Tech (fastcompany.com)
Lippincott, a global creative consultancy, asked 2,000 "leading edge" consumers in the U.S. whether they were excited to welcome our robot overlords or terrified of them. A report on FastCompany adds: Some of their findings go against conventional wisdom, like the belief that consumers are scared about the future. Turns out 80 percent said they are excited about changes in technology. Some 78 percent feel more powerful and in control of their lives thanks to the support from smart machines, artificial intelligence, and robotics. There is some anxiety about the incursion of tech into our lives, with over 40 percent reporting that they are scared about changes to the economy, society, culture, and the government. Despite that, 64 percent of them still expect that the world will be better in 10 years than it is today.
The vast majority of 'consumers' have no idea what's going on 'under the hood' of the hardware and software tech they're using and how the corporations that tech interacts with (or 'is ultimately controlled by', if you prefer), and if they did have a thorough understanding I guarantee you they'd be far less than 'happy' about it, they'd own less tech, and (with any luck at all) there'd be a strong outcry for vast, far-reaching reforms in the areas of product testing, product reliability, privacy, and security. I can also guarantee you that this would also very much include so-called 'self driving cars' and other areas of so-called 'machine intelligence' (I refuse to call it 'AI'). Corporations have no real legal, moral, or ethical responsibility for full disclosure about their products and practices to the public, and as a result people are lied to by way of omission every single day, all in the name of the Almighty Profit.