Qualitative Research & Analysis
Overview
This was a team project of the class where we were supposed to conduct Qualitative Research and Analysis. We team of 5 students decided to explore the topic of Artificial Intelligence and its users. Primarily I wanted to explore, is the fear increasing among the users of AI as a consequence of the rise of AI now and then. Contrarily, I changed our team's attitude to dispassionate to conduct unbiased research.
My Role
Designing the interview questions
Recruiting Participants
Interviewing Participants
Transcribing and Coding the interviews
Correlating(non-stasticial term) people's knowledge of AI and their attitude towards the same
Writing the research paper
Team Facilitation
Methods
As a team, we came to a consensus that 8 diverse participants would be enough to gather enough data. In the case of any no show or ineligible participant being showed up I decided to recruit 2 more participants; that makes 10 in total. I designed the questions like:
1) How would you define AI, in your own words?
2) In which daily activities you think, you use AI directly or indirectly?
3) How have your experience been using AI so far?
4) In future, what would be the effects of AI on other industries?
5) In future, how would you see the effects of AI on mankind?
6) (If it is negative or mixed effects) how do you think we can overcome those effects of AI?
These were the 6 basic questions we asked. And I also asked the follow up questions to the answers of the above questions. While interviewing, I made sure if the participants are encouraged enough to express themselves
Analysis & Results
Each interviews were transcribed and coded in order to sort out the relationship between interviewees' personalities and their answers.
Reltationship between AI and their attitude
As depicted in the tables left side, the knowledge of people is determined by their overall understanding of AI and ability to express AI related phenomena.
It is interesting that the participants who were found unknowledgeable are mostly optimistic about the rise of AI in future. Contrarily, the participants who were found knowledgeable could sense the future of AI vividly and expressed their serious concerns regarding the negative effects of AI on the human kind and society in future.
"If, for 50 years, you keep putting all the data of the Universe in that robot’s head and that robot can predict what humans can think of... if humans think of stopping it, the machine can predict what could be the next step of humans and whatever they think of, would have been something that the machine has already predicted. What are my next strategies to stop humans and I will never ever be stopped?" - Participant P3
Cultural Influence
It is also observed that people's attitude was not just depended on their knowledge and experience but their culture as well. Cultural influences play a significant role in shaping people's attitude and it is no different in the of the case of Artificial Intelligence.
"A lot of my imagination is on what you know, ... You know like the movie Her....when people are lonely or something that they could rely on something that may or may not be alive to make you feel better about your situation... it would obviously make everything simpler like I wouldn't have to actually pay attention to the road. I guess I could just sit in a car and I would be driven around..." - Participant P9.
Learning and Reflection
In-depth interview was identified the best Qualitative Research technique to figure the users' attitude. It gave me chance to peep into participants' mindset, thought process and culture.