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AI
Tech
Most Americans don’t trust AI — or the people in charge of it
Two new studies show that the public is anxious about AI.
Two new studies show that the public is anxious about AI.
AI experts are feeling pretty good about the future of their field. Most Americans are not.
A new report from Pew Research Center released last week shows a sharp divide in how artificial intelligence is perceived by the people building it versus the people living with it. The survey, which includes responses from over 1,000 AI experts and more than 5,000 US adults, reveals a growing optimism gap: experts are hopeful, while the public is anxious, distrustful, and increasingly uneasy.
Roughly three-quarters of AI experts think the technology will benefit them personally. Only a quarter of the public says the same. Experts believe AI will make jobs better; the public thinks it will take them away. Even basic trust in the system is fractured: more than half of both groups say they want more control over how AI is used in their lives, and majorities say they don’t trust the government or private companies to regulate it responsibly.
That makes sense when you look at just how hard the US government has failed at basic tech regulation. Congress loves to haul big tech CEOs in for theatrical hearings where lawmakers fumble through questions about Section 230 that sound like they were written by someone who just discovered the internet yesterday.
Few Americans believe they have any agency in the AI-driven future.
“It seems like when you look at these … congressional hearings, they don’t understand it at all. I don’t know that I have faith that they would be able to bring on enough experts to understand it enough to regulate it, but I think it’s very important,” one academic expert said in the report.
The public’s skepticism about government AI regulation exists alongside the wildly ambitious claims of tech leaders about the future potential of AI. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said he expects we may see “the first AI agents ‘join the workforce’ and materially change the output of companies” in 2025. That seems to show up in the data, too: few Americans believe they have any agency in the AI-driven future. Nearly 60 percent of US adults say they have little or no control over whether AI is used in their lives. That number isn’t much better among experts.