  Building and implementing ethical AI systems that benefit the whole society
is cost-intensive and a multi-faceted task fraught with potential problems.
While computer science focuses mostly on the technical questions to mitigate
social issues, social science addresses citizens' perceptions to elucidate
social and political demands that influence the societal implementation of AI
systems. Thus, in this study, we explore the salience of AI issues in the
public with an emphasis on ethical criteria to investigate whether it is likely
that ethical AI is actively requested by the population. Between May 2020 and
April 2021, we conducted 15 surveys asking the German population about the most
important AI-related issues (total of N=14,988 respondents). Our results show
that the majority of respondents were not concerned with AI at all. However, it
can be seen that general interest in AI and a higher educational level are
predictive of some engagement with AI. Among those, who reported having thought
about AI, specific applications (e.g., autonomous driving) were by far the most
mentioned topics. Ethical issues are voiced only by a small subset of citizens
with fairness, accountability, and transparency being the least mentioned ones.
These have been identified in several ethical guidelines (including the EU
Commission's proposal) as key elements for the development of ethical AI. The
salience of ethical issues affects the behavioral intentions of citizens in the
way that they 1) tend to avoid AI technology and 2) engage in public
discussions about AI. We conclude that the low level of ethical implications
may pose a serious problem for the actual implementation of ethical AI for the
Common Good and emphasize that those who are presumably most affected by
ethical issues of AI are especially unaware of ethical risks. Yet, once ethical
AI is top of the mind, there is some potential for activism.
