Computer Science Student Attitudes Towards AI Ethics and Policy: A Preliminary Investigation

The explosive growth of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in everyday settings in recent years has highlighted the need to develop comprehensive policies to promote the ethical use of AI. As the next generation of AI developers and policymakers receive training on technical AI foundations, it is also important to examine how discussions around AI ethics and policy are (or are not) woven into existing computer science (CS) curricula. Thus, the perceptions of current college students studying AI are valuable in two ways: (1) to assess how AI ethics is currently being taught at the university level; and (2) to understand the attitudes of this new generation of AI thinkers towards AI, both in general and with respect to AI ethics.This paper summarizes the results of a preliminary survey of undergraduate CS students (n = 41) enrolled in a machine learning course at a large public university in the United States. We use our survey instrument to assess student attitudes towards AI, AI ethics, and AI policy. We find that while CS students are generally very positive about the benefit of AI and use AI tools regularly, they are nevertheless worried about the ethical impact of current and future AI technologies. Moreover, although nearly half of the students we surveyed would be interested in AI policy as a potential career path, only a third of respondents believed that their university courses were adequately preparing them to engage in discussions around AI policy and regulation. In this paper, we further evaluate these survey results and discuss implications for AI education at large.