The Data and Web Science Laboratory of AUTh (Datalab), in cooperation with the Citizen Science Hub of Aristotle University in Thessaloniki, co-organised the participatory event “AI and Us: Exploring public trust in AI” for exploring public attitudes and trust in Artificial Intelligence (AI), focusing on Generative AI. The event was conducted within the context of the Horizon Europe project IANUS – INspiring and ANchoring TrUst in Science. IANUS aims to strengthen warranted trust in science, research, and innovation at a systemic level by encouraging participation in research as a co-creative and inclusive process sensitive to societal values, concerns, and needs.
The event took place on March 6th, 2024 on the premises of Datalab. Prof. Athena Vakali, Director of Datalab and founding member of the AUTh Citizen Science Hub, opened the event and the IANUS team members Sofia Yfantidou, Maria Michali, and Eva Paraschou delivered the remaining presentations and instructions for the foreseen participatory tasks.
An inclusive and participatory approach was followed, with participants comprising computer scientists (both university students and professionals), engineers, as well as the general public not directly related to AI and/or computer science. All participants were informed on the IANUS project and on the topic of trust in science, and were afterwards engaged in a series of interactive exercises and tasks that displayed Generative AI outputs and aimed to explore their trust, attitudes, as well as concerns towards Generative AI tools. The focus was primarily on the content and data produced by Generative AI, highlighting its capacity to disseminate misleading or inaccurate information. A series of online questionnaires were similarly filled in by participants. The combination of online tasks with questionnaires had a twofold goal: firstly το elicit insights on participants’ attitude towards AI based on their performance to the tasks, and secondly to bring at the forefront the voices of diverse stakeholders through their answers to various closed and open-ended questions.
Finally, an open discussion followed, where participants expressed various queries and interest towards the IANUS project, the design and expected impact of the online tasks. Next steps were similarly discussed, in terms of analyzing the data collected through the event and co-deriving conclusions about trust in AI and Generative AI.
