As AI attracts vast investment and attention, there are competing concerns about the technology's opportunities and uncertainties that blend technical and social questions. The public debate, dominated by a few powerful voices, tends to highlight extreme promises and threats. We wanted to know whether public discussions or technology companies' priorities were representative of AI researchers' opinions. Our survey of more than 4,000 AI researchers is, we think, the largest conducted to date. It was designed to understand attitudes to a variety of issues and include some comparisons with public attitudes derived from existing surveys. Most previous surveys of AI researchers have asked them for predictions of passing a technological threshold or the probabilities of some catastrophic event. These surveys mask the uncertainty and diversity that normally characterises scientific research. Our hypothesis was that the opinions of AI researchers would be markedly different from those of members of the public. While there are areas of divergence, particularly in attitudes to the technology's potential benefits, our survey shows some surprising convergence between researchers' and publics' opinions, particularly in the assessment and prioritisation of risk. Responses to an open text question 'What one thing most worries you about AI?' reveal that only 3% of AI researchers prioritise existential risks, despite the prominence given to these risks in media and policy. AI technologies and AI researchers seem to be much more 'normal' than public representations suggest. Our survey results suggest the possibility for new forms of public dialogue on AI's harms, risks and opportunities. Rather than speculating on future potential risks, policymakers and AI researchers should collaborate on understanding and mitigating the range of sociotechnical risks that are already of clear public concern.

翻译：随着人工智能吸引大量投资与关注，关于该技术机遇与不确定性的多重关切交织着技术与社会问题。由少数强势声音主导的公共讨论往往聚焦极端化的前景与威胁。我们试图探究公共讨论或科技公司的优先事项是否能够代表人工智能研究者的观点。我们认为，本次对4000余名人工智能研究者开展的调查是迄今规模最大的同类研究。调查旨在了解研究者对各类议题的态度，并纳入与现有调查所获公众态度的对比分析。以往多数针对人工智能研究者的调查主要询问其对技术阈值突破时间或灾难性事件发生概率的预测，这类调查掩盖了科学研究通常具有的不确定性与多样性特征。我们假设人工智能研究者的观点会与公众存在显著差异。尽管在技术潜在效益认知等方面确实存在分歧，但调查显示研究者与公众观点在某些领域呈现出令人惊讶的趋同性，特别是在风险评估与优先级排序方面。针对开放式问题"关于人工智能最令您担忧的一点是什么？"的回答显示，尽管媒体和政策讨论高度关注存在性风险，但仅有3%的人工智能研究者将其列为首要关切。人工智能技术与人工智能研究者似乎远比公共叙事所呈现的更为"常态化"。我们的调查结果表明，针对人工智能危害、风险与机遇的新型公共对话具有可行性。政策制定者与人工智能研究者应当超越对未来潜在风险的推测，转而协作理解并缓解当前已引发明确公众关切的社会技术风险谱系。