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Abstract As artificial intelligence (AI) grows in popularity and importance—both as a domain within broader computing research and in society at large—increasing focus will need to be paid to the ethical governance of this emerging technology. The attitudes and competencies with respect to AI ethics and policy among post-secondary students studying computer science (CS) are of particular interest, as many of these students will go on to play key roles in the development and deployment of future AI innovations. Despite this population of computer scientists being at the forefront of learning about and using AI tools, their attitudes towards AI remain understudied in the literature. In an effort to begin to close this gap, in fall 2024 we fielded a survey ($$n=117$$) to undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in CS courses at a large public university in the United States to assess their attitudes towards the nascent fields of AI ethics and policy. Additionally, we conducted one-on-one follow-up interviews with 13 students to elicit more in-depth responses on topics such as the use of AI tools in the classroom, ethical impacts of AI, and government regulation of AI. In this paper, we describe the findings of our exploratory study, drawing parallels and contrasts to broader public opinion polling in the United States. We conclude by evaluating the implications of CS student attitudes on the future of AI education and governance.
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This content will become publicly available on April 1, 2026
Perceptions of AI Ethics Policies Among Scientists and Engineers in Policy-Related Roles: An Exploratory Investigation
Abstract The explosive growth of artificial intelligence (AI) over the past few years has focused attention on how diverse stakeholders regulate these technologies to ensure their safe and ethical use. Increasingly, governmental bodies, corporations, and nonprofit organizations are developing strategies and policies for AI governance. While existing literature on ethical AI has focused on the various principles and guidelines that have emerged as a result of these efforts, just how these principles are operationalized and translated to broader policy is still the subject of current research. Specifically, there is a gap in our understanding of how policy practitioners actively engage with, contextualize, or reflect on existing AI ethics policies in their daily professional activities. The perspectives of these policy experts towards AI regulation generally are not fully understood. To this end, this paper explores the perceptions of scientists and engineers in policy-related roles in the US public and nonprofit sectors towards AI ethics policy, both in the US and abroad. We interviewed 15 policy experts and found that although these experts were generally familiar with AI governance efforts within their domains, overall knowledge of guiding frameworks and critical regulatory policies was still limited. There was also a general perception among the experts we interviewed that the US lagged behind other comparable countries in regulating AI, a finding that supports the conclusion of existing literature. Lastly, we conducted a preliminary comparison between the AI ethics policies identified by the policy experts in our study and those emphasized in existing literature, identifying both commonalities and areas of divergence.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2412398
- PAR ID:
- 10621243
- Publisher / Repository:
- Springer Nature
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Digital Society
- Volume:
- 4
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2731-4650
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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