Artificial Intelligence Perceptions and Life Satisfaction

The paper estimates whether there is any relationship between life satisfaction and people's perceptions towards artificial intelligence. Using data from 39 European countries collected in 2021, it is consistently found that people with negative perceptions report lower life satisfaction. This finding is robust across a number of robustness checks. This provides further evidence that people may fear some new technologies, in this case artificial intelligence, which adds weight to governments needing to establish moratoriums to openly discuss what the objectives of new science, technologies and innovations are and how best to manage and steer policy and regulation to achieve these objectives.