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What Does the American Public Think About AI?
As tech leaders ride the unstoppable AI wave into oblivion, a cautious public watches on with mixed feelings. While developing marketing, outreach, and strategies for 2025, it’s critical to consider public opinion on AI beyond B2B settings. Americans express mixed support for it’s development and share positive experiences and anxieties with their colleagues, social circle, and political representatives.
As development into AI continues, CTOs need to take a step back to consider the myriad of feelings that the general public attaches to an AI-centered strategy. Workers, buyers, and users alike share mixed feelings that need to be assuaged in order to keep AI leading the charge.
Unveiling the numbers: Americans have mixed feelings about AI
| Nearly 59 percent of Americans think that AI will increase unemployment. |
| 28 percent of American workers say they have used an AI chatbot at work. 68 percent say it has been helpful, and 38 percent say it has become an essential tool they use regularly. |
| A majority of Americans under 35 also express interest in AI personal assistants (62 percent), AI tutors (51 percent), AI workout coaches (51 percent), or AI financial advisors (51 percent), etc. |
| Nearly 54 percent of US citizens also think that AI could lead to major advances in the production of drought- and heat-resistant crops. |
| When the question turns to whether AI will be good or bad for society, 38 percent of Americans say it will make things better, 35 percent say it will make things worse, and just 9 percent say it will have no impact. |
CTOs need to assuage complicated feelings on new tech
Not a surprise – Americans have a multitude of views about AI depending on profession, location, education level, and age. They are curious, interested, worried, and amazed. Given the relative newness of the technology and the high degree of uncertainty in its future, Americans are not entirely sure how to feel about the technology yet.
Most Americans also see AI as just another piece of technology among many, as opposed to feeling AI could fundamentally change American society and the position of many AI evangelists. Whether those changes are good or bad depends largely on individual experience.
As business leaders and C-suite evangelists introduce AI into their work streams and public-facing products, these leaders must consider that the public is not necessarily viewing AI as transformative, robustly positive technology yet – but opinions on AI is malleable and subject to change. Keeping a pulse on public perception of AI is critical.
There is more work to do to achieve the promise of AI, and it must be done the right way to ensure its advances come with more benefits to humanity than risks. Americans are overwhelmingly anxious about a few things when it comes to AI – making jobs obsolete, security risks, and dissolution of ethical boundaries.
Moving toward responsible AI means slowing down
Combating these fears starts with uniformity – organizations and leaders across all industries and segments to have a certain level of maturity in their tools, data, and people. CTOs and CIO’s need to explain – thoroughly – decisions around implementing AI technologies, models and platforms as per their needs and goals to drive value for business. Finally, leaders need to recognize the value of their people. They need to ensure they have the proper training and skills to work effectively with AI.
To drive the positive outcomes even governments will need to spend the next few years focusing on building solid ethical and legal foundations for AI development. It will require extensive coordination and cooperation between the public and private sectors, as well as a regulatory bodies that foster responsible innovation.
“I’m increasingly inclined to think that there should be some regulatory oversight, maybe at the national and international level, just to make sure that we don’t do something very foolish. I mean with artificial intelligence we’re summoning the demon,” James Barrat, author of Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era, once told the Washington Post.
In brief
The current American opinion on AI can be summed up in two words: Slow. Down. The sentiment that we need to slow down AI’s progress is often rooted in concerns about safety, ethics, job displacement, and societal impact.
