Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a big part of our lives, yet the perceptions on the acceptance of AI seem to differ across countries. I came across an article stating that a few campsites in the Netherlands use facial recognition to provide customers access to the swimming pool, instead of letting staff check their card or wristband. However, what’s surprising is that one campsite had 300 customers and only three of them opted for this futuristic convenience. Most people were worried about the adoption of facial recognition because of privacy concerns. On the busy streets of China, such application of AI is common practice in public places and people seem to be more accepting. The strong difference between these two countries, raises intriguing questions, such as: How does culture shape our acceptance of AI? What kind of role does it play in the way we perceive and accept AI?
The acceptance of AI could be explained through two cultural dimensions from Geert Hofstede. For example, Lee & Joshi (2020) used uncertainty avoidance (UA) and collectivism/individualism. UA refers to the way that society deals with the uncertainty of the future and to which extent they feel threatened by unknown situations. Individuals from high UA culture are more likely to adopt AI, compared to those from low UA culture. The reason is that technological solutions appeal more to individuals from high uncertainty avoidance cultures, as they can increase predictability and are more likely to invest in technologies. However, people from individualistic cultures may not be as inclined as those from collectivistic cultures when it comes to depending on AI. A reason for this could be that the use of facial recognition in collectivistic countries, are perceived to benefit the society as a whole and may prioritize efficiency and convenience, which could lead to greater acceptance of AI.
When organizations want to increase the adoption of AI, it is worthy to consider it from a cultural perspective. Do you think that culture has an influence on the acceptance of AI? Share your thoughts in the comments! 👇
Sources:
Hulsen, S. (2023). Steeds meer campings met gezichtsherkenning: handig, maar mag dit zomaar? https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/nieuws/nederland/artikel/5394988/steeds-meer-campings-met-gezichtsherkenning-zwembad
Hofstede Insights. (2023). Country Comparison Tool. https://www.hofstede-insights.com/country-comparison-tool?countries=china%2Cnetherlands
Lee, K., & Joshi, K. (2020). Understanding the Role of Cultural Context and User interaction in artificial intelligence based systems. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1097198X.2020.1794131
I like how you apply Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory to address the differences in perception when adopting AI from various cultural perspectives.
The question you pose at the end drew my interest, and I spent some time thinking about it. I came up with a question: Does uncertainty avoidance actually have an impact on adopting AI? This is because according to the Hofstede model, the Netherlands scores higher than China (53 vs. 30) in uncertainty avoidance. Additionally, Korea scores even higher (85).
However, both China and Korea score low on individualism (20 vs. 18), and this seems to be a key factor that affects perception and adoption of AI the most. Otherwise, it contradicts the claim that people from high UV are inclined to adopt AI but apparently Dutch people seem to worry about the adoption. I’m not sure if this is universally true, so I’d like to ask if people from different countries have similar results.
Hi Christina, Thank you for taking the time to talk about this very interesting topic. I like how you pose the question on why countries like the Netherlands might not be jumping on the facial recognition hype train. And how you make comparisons between countries with different cultures. I would love to know if you think there are any ways that individualistic countries like the Netherlands might be able to adopt such a technology. What needs to be done to make people feel secure enough to let the government or companies use this technology? I believe it will be very hard for especially companies to adopt this technology here. People are very distrusting of companies and rather not share any information with them, let alone their facial image for recognition. This is not without merit of course, I would also not let a private company have my personal face for recognition. so maybe we need a central and very secure system where companies can make use of but not let them be the owner of the information. I believe someone will eventually come up with something that will sway the people into being more accepting to such technologies.