The notoriety of ChatGPT in Quebec is indisputable. A year after its launch, nearly six out of ten Quebecers are aware of this generative artificial intelligence and many of them, at 39.8%, have already used it, reveals an SOM survey. And surprisingly, 89.8% say they are satisfied with it, even if the majority admit to having occasionally obtained incorrect information.
Star among 18-24 year olds
The younger you are, the more you know and have used ChatGPT at least once. The peak is reached by 18-24 year olds, 91.1% of whom are aware of it and 68.3% of whom have used it.
“The generation gap is obvious,” notes analysis Mathieu Guimont on the SOM blog. Indeed, […] knowledge gradually decreases with age, reaching around 35% among people aged 65 or over. »
We also note a fairly marked difference between men and women in this SOM survey conducted in November 2023 among a panel of 1002 Internet users. If 67.8% of men claim to know this artificial intelligence (AI), only 50.5% of women respond this way.
Rather funny, respondents largely underestimated their knowledge in the broader field of artificial intelligence. When asked “Do you know of any applications based on artificial intelligence?” », 88% responded negatively. Considering the omnipresence of such applications in electronic devices, that 84% of Quebecers have a smartphone, 59% a tablet and 83% a computer according to the most recent NETendances Digital Portrait, it is incredible that only 12% have used applications based on AI. Siri, Google’s search engine or voice recognition on a television are clearly not yet synonymous with AI for ordinary people.
What they do with it
In the United States, the renowned Pew Research Center established last August that the most popular use of ChatGPT, at 20%, was “entertainment”, almost tied with “learning something new”. , at 19%.
And in Quebec?
Obviously, the comparison is difficult since the questions asked are not necessarily the same as in the United States. The most popular response, according to the SOM survey, was “help in finding information” (66.2% of respondents said they had used it for this purpose).
As for entertainment, it comes very far down the list, at 10e rank, while only 4.3% of respondents say they have used ChatGPT for this purpose.
Note also that almost one in two respondents, or 49.9%, say they have used this robot as part of their work, which perhaps explains why the requests in Quebec seem more serious.
Error tolerant
Quebecers are also rather satisfied with the results of their requests, with 89.8% believing that ChatGPT responded well or very well. Small paradox, 58.3% still admit that AI has “sometimes” or “rarely” transmitted erroneous information to them.
If we examine the results more carefully, we see that this response increases with the level of education. While 51.9% of respondents with a high school diploma or less were exposed to erroneous information, 64.7% of university graduates noticed it.
Rather optimistic
On the broader question of artificial intelligence, Quebecers could not be described as particularly worried about its deployment: 42.1% believe that it will have a positive or very positive effect on their everyday lives and 21% have a more negative opinion on the impacts of this technology. Men here are much more enthusiastic, estimating 50.8% that the impact will be positive, compared to 33.9% of women.
When we ask them in which area AI could bring the most benefit to humanity, we get rather down-to-earth answers. The most popular answer: cybersecurity and fraud detection, chosen by 53.1% of respondents. Next come text translation (50.4%) and health (48.9%). The following choice is somewhat perplexing: space exploration is chosen by 43.8% of respondents.
Finally, regarding the hot topic of AI supervision, the respondents’ first choice would be to entrust it to “an international body (e.g.: UN)”. 44.8% of them nominated it. We would then trust “independent ethics committees” (43.2%) and the governments of each country (41%). As for the industry itself, it comes in sixth position, chosen by only 22.3% of respondents. Note here that a tiny fraction, barely 0.6%, believes that “we should stop the development of AI”.
The study was conducted from November 24 to 28, 2023 among 1,002 Quebec adults registered with the SOM panel of Internet users. The results were weighted according to the composition of the Quebec population. The maximum margin of error is +/- 4.0 points, 19 times out of 20.