Perceptions and Realities of Text-to-Image Generation
This research highlights a gap in public awareness about the personal and societal impacts of generative AI, particularly for creative professionals, but it is incremental as it builds on existing survey-based studies of technology perceptions.
The study surveyed people's perceptions of text-to-image generation, finding that while participants recognized societal risks like threats to artists, few saw it as a personal risk, and those who had tried the technology rated its future importance lower than those who had not.
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. Interestingly, 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.