US tops public distrust in innovation on eve of Davos -Edelman

Business and governments are doing a poor job of managing and regulating new technologies, a survey of people in advance of this week’s World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos has found.

The Edelman survey, released as the WEF meeting is set to begin under the theme “Rebuilding Trust”, found 39 per cent of respondents asked if they trusted business and NGOs with introducing innovations and governments to regulate them, said it was poorly managed. Just 22 per cent said it was well managed.

Still, business was the most trusted category to integrate innovation into society, in advance of NGOs, government and media.

The highest level of mistrust about the management of innovation among the countries surveyed by the public relations firm was in the United States, with 56 per cent saying that innovation was poorly managed versus 14 per cent saying it was well managed. The survey questioned 32,000 people in 28 countries during November.

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The report said examples of pushback against technology included Beijing dropping Covid vaccine mandates in July 2022 after online pushback, US Republican positions against electric vehicles and Hollywood writers’ battle against the use of artificial intelligence in writing scripts.

Resistance to innovation is political, the survey said, with more resistance in politically right-leaning people particularly in the United States, Australia, Germany and Canada.

“Innovation is accelerating and should be a growth enabler, but it will be stymied if business doesn’t pay as much attention to acceptance as it does research and development,” Edelman’S chief executive Richard Edelman said in a statement,

The report also found Britain was at the bottom of Edelman’s Trust Barometer, which gives an average percentage trust in NGOs, business, government and media, with a score of 39 per cent. – Reuters