The fearful mind of artificial intelligence: fear and perceived existential threat of artificial intelligence as a function of its cognitive and emotional capabilities

The purpose of this research was to examine people's fear and perception of threat toward artificial intelligence (AI) as a function of various psychological features attributed to it. To investigate this, participants (Exp. 1, <i>N</i> = 206) read descriptions of AI with high or low cognitive and emotional capabilities. They were most (least) averse to AI described as having the strongest (weakest) of these capabilities (Exp. 1). Similarly, in Experiment 2, a representative U.S. sample (<i>N</i> = 686) was more afraid of and threatened by AI described as having equally strong cognitive and emotional capabilities than AI described as with weaker capabilities (weak cognition, strong emotion), but that pattern was reversed when the faculties were attributed to pharmacologically altered humans. These findings provide evidence for competing predictions about the configuration of these faculties to evoke negateve responses. Furthermore, they provide a novel test of these competing predictions applied to AI.