Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is a widely popular technology that will have a profound impact on society and individuals. Less than a decade ago, it was thought that creative work would be among the last to be automated - yet today, we see AI encroaching on many creative domains. In this paper, we present the findings of a survey study on people's perceptions of text-to-image generation. We touch on participants' technical understanding of the emerging technology, their fears and concerns, and thoughts about risks and dangers of text-to-image generation to the individual and society. We find that while participants were aware of the risks and dangers associated with the technology, only few participants considered the technology to be a personal risk. The risks for others were more easy to recognize for participants. Artists were particularly seen at risk. Participants who had tried the technology rated its future importance lower than those who had not tried it. This result shows that many people are still oblivious of the potential personal risks of generative artificial intelligence and the impending societal changes associated with this technology.

翻译：生成式人工智能（AI）是一项广受欢迎的技术，将对个人和社会产生深远影响。不到十年前，人们普遍认为创造性工作将是最后被自动化的领域之一——然而今天，我们看到AI正逐渐渗透到众多创意领域。本文介绍了一项关于人们对文本到图像生成技术感知的调查研究。我们探讨了参与者对该新兴技术的技术理解、其恐惧与担忧，以及关于文本到图像生成对个人和社会潜在风险与危害的看法。研究发现，尽管参与者意识到该技术的相关风险与危害，但仅少数人认为该技术对其构成个人风险。参与者更易识别出技术对他人的风险，其中艺术家被视为尤其高危群体。曾使用过该技术的参与者对其未来重要性的评价低于未使用者。这一结果表明，许多人仍对生成式人工智能潜在的个人风险及该技术即将引发的社会变革缺乏认知。