Familiarity with AI isn't breeding comfort for Americans, Gallup finds - KTXS

Familiarity with AI isn't breeding comfort for Americans, Gallup finds

(TNND) — A new Gallup report shows Americans aren't embracing artificial intelligence, despite growing more familiar with the powerful technology.

A growing share of Americans expects AI to do more harm than good. And more Americans expect AI to take away jobs.

But one AI expert said “partial familiarity” has many Americans focusing more on the negative aspects of AI than the potential benefits.

Gallup said 39% of people expect AI to do more harm than good. Just 9% believe the opposite, with around half of people expecting equal amounts of good and bad.

The nearly 40% share now expecting a worse outcome is up from 31% each of the past two years.

Gallup said the negativity was especially pronounced among younger adults, with 47% of those 18-29 expecting AI to do more harm than good.

Meanwhile, 70% of Americans told Gallup that they’re at least somewhat knowledgeable about AI, up from 64% in 2024.

Anton Dahbura, an AI expert and the co-director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Assured Autonomy, said a lot of opinions of AI are shaped by reputation or “one slice of it” rather than the full picture of the technology.

People are turned off by AI "slop" they see all the time on social media, “a decidedly mixed experience” with customer-facing chatbots, energy-hungry data centers, and headlines about AI threatening jobs.

But he said many folks miss the “inside baseball” applications of AI aimed at improving many aspects of industry and society – things like accelerating drug discovery, developing new materials, improving aircraft design and boosting energy efficiency.

“I think we're seeing a period of instability with a disruptive new technology where ... each person is seeing different sides, calling it the same thing,” Dahbura said.

AI has been decades in the making, but the technology is now really pushing the boundaries of what can be accomplished with software, he said.

Employees may have little choice but to adapt when their companies implement new AI tools, but Dahbura said public buy-in matters for consumer-focused applications of AI.

Still, he said people will keep using AI, which is increasingly built into the products and services we use every day.

Gallup also found that Americans largely distrust businesses to use AI responsibly.

Just 27% said they have at least some trust in businesses to deploy AI responsibly, down from 31% last year but still a bit higher than trust levels in 2023 and 2024.

Once again, the decline in trust compared to last year was especially pronounced among younger adults, Gallup said.

And more Americans expect AI to take away jobs. Gallup found 79% expect AI to lead to job losses over the next decade. That view was held by 73% of people a year ago.

Dahbura said he thinks AI will do more good than harm. And he said business trust is a “mixed bag.” But on both accounts, he said regulation is needed.

“It will do more good,” Dahbura said. “But our collective governments – not just the U.S., not just China, it's a global thing – really need to regulate this powerful technology, because it's like anything else, it can be used for good or evil.”

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Business “accountability is a little bit fuzzy” given the complex supply chains with the emerging technology, he said.

And Dahbura said some companies “are beset with groupthink” where “nobody in the room stands up and says, ‘Just because we can do it, should we do it?’”

As for workforce disruptions, Dahbura said that’s unavoidable.

“People lose their jobs because of virtually any new technology that comes along,” he said.

Human employees are expensive, providing motivation for companies to adopt AI, he said.

But Dahbura said “people and economies make adjustments,” and the need for human workers won’t disappear in the age of AI.

“I believe that there will be new opportunities, but they will be very different from the kinds of things that a lot of people are doing today,” he said.