Are the times a-changin?: From unaware AI sceptics to hopeful AI critics

Higher Seminar in Media and Communication Studies with Anders Olof Larsson from Kristiania University

Welcome to the next higher seminar organised by the Media and Communication Studies department! In this higher seminar, Anders Olof Larsson will present on the topic: Are the times a-changin?: From unaware AI sceptics to hopeful AI critics.

The past years have seen an increasing use of automated decision making and AI applications in public administration. The implementations range from robotic process automation that automates decision making on standard applications such as social benefits to risk scoring and citizen profiling. With the emergence of what has been called the digital and AI welfare state (Dencik & Kaun, 2020; Kaun & Masso, 2025), controversies have also emerged. Some of the most prominent cases are the Dutch welfare scandal that forced wrongly accused residents to repay children allowance and had severe impact on the financial and social lives of people affected. In some cases removed custody and even suicide were reported (Peeters & Widlak, 2023).

The implementation of algorithms and AI in the public sector is a democratic question that needs to take citizen perspectives into account. However, this perspective is still largely overlooked in both research and policy.

Although there are increasing numbers of critical data studies dedicated to the automation of welfare, the question remains what citizens think and feel about algorithmic decision making in the public sector. In this article, we report findings from two waves of a survey on citizens’ attitudes towards automated decision making and AI in the public sector that were conducted in 2021 and in 2026 respectively. We explore if and how citizens’ attitudes have changed over time. The starting point is that high profile automation scandals and public discussions as well as the further spread of AI assistants and chatbots including Chat-GPT might have led to changes in how citizens evaluated the automation of welfare provision with the help of algorithms and AI.

The results indicate that there are significant changes in how citizens evaluate automation in welfare, though these changes are not straightforward. The strongest tendency that we have observed is that citizens are more aware of the technological shift in general. However, they have not become less critical to the contrary views are more nuanced depending on the domain of deployment. Hence, we argue for a move from unaware AI sceptics to hopeful AI critics. We conclude with arguing for more longitudinal studies exploring technology-related attitude changes over time.


Anders Olof Larsson (PhD, Uppsala University, 2012) is Professor at the Department of Communication, Kristiania University College in Oslo, Norway. His research interests include the use of online interactivity and social media by societal institutions and their audiences, journalism studies, political communication and methodology, especially quantitative and computational methods.

It is possible to join the lecture on campus and online via Zoom. Contact us for the Zoom details if you'd like to join online.