Public images of artificial intelligence: an overview

Karsten Weber

doi:10.31648/mcsc.10343

Published: 2025-06-27

No. 21 (2025)

Public images of artificial intelligence: an overview

Karsten Weber

Media - Culture - Social Communication

Section: Articles

https://doi.org/10.31648/mcsc.10343

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) is not only a ubiquitous topic in scholarly debates but in recent years has also received increased media and political attention. Discussions, initially strongly influenced by autonomous vehicles but currently dominated by expectations concerning generative AI such as ChatGPT, have contributed to public awareness. There are debate cycles, often characterized by a significant decline in public attention after a certain period of time, and the issue to a large extent or completely disappears from mass media’s agenda; also, they are often specific to certain countries. In this paper, a cursory cross-country overview concerning studies on media representations and the public perception of AI is provided. The use of AI in healthcare will be particularly highlighted, as there are currently high expectations regarding the benefits of AI, but other areas of application will also be considered. It will be tentatively concluded that in many countries, public perception of and public attitudes toward AI often is based on superficial knowledge and even prejudices.

Keywords:

Artificial intelligence, media representation, public perception, cross-country comparison, mass media, social media

Download files

pdf

Citation rules

Weber, K. (2025). Public images of artificial intelligence: an overview. Media - Culture - Social Communication, (21). https://doi.org/10.31648/mcsc.10343

Cited by / Share

Licence

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

References

Adam, Alison E. (1990): What can the history of AI learn from the history of science? AI & Society 4(3), 232–241.
Crossref
Google Scholar

Araujo, Theo; Helberger, Natali; Kruikemeier, Sanne and de Vreese, Claes H. (2020): In AI we trust? Perceptions about automated decision-making by artificial intelligence. AI & Society 35(3), 611–623.
Crossref
Google Scholar

Belton, John (1994): American Cinema/American Society. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Google Scholar

Cave, Stephen; Coughlan, Kate and Dihal, Kanta (2019): ‘Scary robots‘: Examining public responses to AI. Proceedings of the 2019 AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society. Honolulu/U.S.: ACM, 331–337.
Crossref
Google Scholar

Cave, Stephen and Dihal, Kanta (2019): Hopes and fears for intelligent machines in fiction and reality. Nature Machine Intelligence 1(2), 74–78.
Crossref
Google Scholar

Danaher, John and McArthur, Neil (eds.) (2017): Robot sex: Social and ethical implications. Cambridge/Massachusetts: The MIT Press.
Crossref
Google Scholar

de Fine Licht, Karl and de Fine Licht, Jenny (2020): Artificial intelligence, transparency, and public decision-making: Why explanations are key when trying to produce perceived legitimacy. AI & Society 35(4), 917–926.
Crossref
Google Scholar

Dedehayir, Ozgur and Steinert, Martin (2016): The hype cycle model: A review and future directions. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 108, 28–41.
Crossref
Google Scholar

Doraiswamy, P. Murali; Blease, Charlotte and Bodner, Kaylee (2020): Artificial intelligence and the future of psychiatry: Insights from a global physician survey. Artificial Intelligence in Medicine 102, 101753.
Crossref
Google Scholar

Ernst, Ekkehardt; Merola, Rossana and Samaan, Daniel (2018): Economics of artificial intelligence: Implications for the future of work. ILO Future of Work Research Paper Series. Geneva: International Labour Office.
Google Scholar

Felzmann, Heike; Villaronga, Eduard F.; Lutz, Christoph and Tamò-Larrieux, Aurelia (2019): Transparency you can trust: Transparency requirements for artificial intelligence between legal norms and contextual concerns. Big Data & Society 6(1), 205395171986054.
Crossref
Google Scholar

Fischer, Sarah and Petersen, Thomas (2018): Was Deutschland über Algorithmen weiß und denkt: Ergebnisse einer repräsentativen Bevölkerungsumfrage. Gütersloh: Bertelsmann-Stiftung.
Google Scholar

Ford, Martin (2013): Could artificial intelligence create an unemployment crisis? Communications of the ACM 56(7), 37–39.
Crossref
Google Scholar

Gao, Shuquin; He, Lingnan; Chen, Yue; Li, Dan and Lai, Kaisheng (2020): Public perception of artificial intelligence in medical care: Content analysis of social media. Journal of Medical Internet Research 22(7), e16649.
Crossref
Google Scholar

Garvey, Colin (2018): Testing the ‘Terminator Syndrome’: Sentiment of AI news coverage and perceptions of AI risk. SSRN Electronic Journal.
Crossref
Google Scholar

Generali Deutschland AG (ed.) (2017): Generali Altersstudie 2017. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.
Crossref
Google Scholar

Gherheș, Vasile and Obrad, Ciprian (2018): Technical and humanities students’ perspectives on the development and sustainability of artificial intelligence (AI). Sustainability 10(9), 3066.
Crossref
Google Scholar

Glikson, Ella and Woolley, Anita W. (2020): Human trust in artificial intelligence: Review of empirical research. Academy of Management Annals 14(2), 627–660.
Crossref
Google Scholar

Gupta, Sonia; Kattapuram, Taj M. and Patel, Tirath Y. (2020): Social media’s role in the perception of radiologists and artificial intelligence. Clinical Imaging 68, 158–160.
Crossref
Google Scholar

Hardy, Maryann and Harvy, Hugh (2020): Artificial intelligence in diagnostic imaging: Impact on the radiography profession. British Journal of Radiology 93(1108), 20190840.
Crossref
Google Scholar

Hengstler, Monika; Enkel, Ellen and Duelli, Selina (2016): Applied artificial intelligence and trust—The case of autonomous vehicles and medical assistance devices. Technological Forecasting and Social Change 105, 105–120.
Crossref
Google Scholar

Jannes, Mark; Friele, Minou; Jannes, Christiane and Woopen, Christiane (2018): Algorithmen in der digitalen Gesundheitsversorgung. Eine interdisziplinäre Analyse (im Auftrag der Bertelsmann Stiftung). Köln: ceres.
Google Scholar

Javaheri, Alireza; Moghadamnejad, Navid; Keshavarz, Hamidreza; Javaheri, Ehsan; Dobbins, Chelsea; Momeni-Ortner, Elaheh and Rawassizadeh, Reza (2020): Public vs media opinion on robots and their evolution over recent years. CCF Transactions on Pervasive Computing and Interaction 2(3), 189–205.
Crossref
Google Scholar

Knorre, Susanne; Müller-Peters, Horst and Wagner, Fred (2020): Big Data im öffentlichen Diskurs: Hindernisse und Lösungsangebote für eine Verständigung über den Umgang mit Massendaten. In Knorre, Susanne, Müller-Peters, Horst and Wagner, Fred (eds.): Die Big-Data-Debatte. Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien, 1–62.
Crossref
Google Scholar

Kriz, Sara; Ferro, Toni D.; Damera, Pallavi and Porter, John R. (2010): Fictional robots as a data source in HRI research: Exploring the link between science fiction and interactional expectations. 19th International Symposium in Robot and Human Interactive Communication. Viareggio: IEEE, 458–463.
Crossref
Google Scholar

Naudé, Wim (2019): The Race against the Robots and the fallacy of the giant cheesecake: Immediate and imagined impacts of artificial intelligence. IZA Discussion Papers. Bonn: Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
Crossref
Google Scholar

Obermeyer, Ziad and Emanuel, Ezekiel J. (2016): Predicting the future—big data, machine learning, and clinical medicine. New England Journal of Medicine 375(13), 1216–1219.
Crossref
Google Scholar

Ouchchy, Leila; Coin, Allen and Dubljević, Veljko. (2020): AI in the headlines: The portrayal of the ethical issues of artificial intelligence in the media. AI & Society 35(4), 927–936.
Crossref
Google Scholar

Pansegrau, Petra (2009): Zwischen Fakt und Fiktion – Stereotypen von Wissenschaftlern in Spielfilmen. In Hüppauf, Bernd and Weingart, Peter (eds.): Frosch und Frankenstein. Bielefeld: transcript, 373–386.
Crossref
Google Scholar

Richardson, Kathleen (2016): Sex robot matters: Slavery, the prostituted, and the rights of machines. IEEE Technology and Society Magazine 35(2), 46–53.
Crossref
Google Scholar

Rojahn, Jessica; Palu, Andrea; Skiena, Steven and Jones, Jason J. (2023): American public opinion on artificial intelligence in healthcare. PLOS ONE 18(11), e0294028.
Crossref
Google Scholar

Scheutz, Matthias and Arnold, Thomas (2016): Are we ready for sex robots? 11th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). Christchurch/New Zealand: IEEE, 351–358.
Crossref
Google Scholar

Schmitz, Michael; Endres, Christoph and Butz, Andreas (2008): A survey of human-computer interaction design in science fiction movies. Proceedings of the 2nd international conference on INtelligent TEchnologies for interactive entertainment (ICST INTETAIN ’08). Brussels: ICST, 1–10.
Crossref
Google Scholar

Stai, Bethany; Heller, Nick; McSweeney, Sean; Rickman, Jack; Blake, Paul; Vasdev, Ranveer; Edgerton, Zach; Tejpaul, Resha; Peterson, Matt; Rosenberg, Joel; Kalapara, Arvin; Regmi, Subodh; Papanikolopoulos, Nikolaos and Weight, Christoph J. (2020): Public perceptions of artificial intelligence and robotics in medicine. Journal of Endourology 43(10), 1041–1048.
Crossref
Google Scholar

Steinert, Martin and Leifer, Larry (2010): Scrutinizing Gartner’s hype cycle approach. Proceedings of PICMET 2010 Technology Management for Global Economic Growth. Phuket/Thailand: IEEE, 1–13.
Google Scholar

Sullins, John P. (2012): Robots, love, and sex: The ethics of building a love machine. IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing 3(4), 398–409.
Crossref
Google Scholar

Wang, Lidong and Alexander, Cheryl A. (2020): Big data analytics in medical engineering and healthcare: Methods, advances and challenges. Journal of Medical Engineering & Technology 44(6), 267-283.
Crossref
Google Scholar

Weber, Herbert (2017): Digitalisierung im öffentlichen Diskurs. In Weber, Herbert and Viehmann, Johannes (eds.): Unternehmens-IT für die Digitalisierung 4.0. Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien, 3–13.
Crossref
Google Scholar

Zhang, Baobao and Dafoe, Allan (2020): U.S. public opinion on the governance of artificial intelligence. Proceedings of the AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society. New York: ACM, 187–193.
Crossref
Google Scholar