Artificial intelligence is increasingly becoming a part of daily life for many Americans — and they aren’t happy about it.
As AI continues to accelerate at breakneck speed, working its way into an increasing number of economic sectors and transforming everyday interactions, the technology is fast becoming one of the most disliked forces in American life. This backlash, captured by a growing pile of survey data, adds urgency to the AI policy debates happening on the national level and across state governments, where lawmakers, entrenched tech interests, and consumer protection groups battle over the height of regulatory guardrails.
A poll from NBC News released last week found AI has a -20 approval rating, with 26 percent rating it positively compared to 46 percent who were negative. The only institutions that proved less popular in the poll were the Democratic Party at -22 approval and Iran at -53 approval.
Similarly, the latest poll taken by YouGov and The Economist found three times as many Americans have negative expectations for AI’s impact on society compared to those with a positive outlook. The poll showed 47 percent expect AI to have mostly or entirely negative effects on society, compared to 16 percent who said AI would have mostly or entirely positive effects.
“Polling continuously proves that people are not buying what Big Tech has been peddling: that AI will lead to some kind of utopia. In fact, a mass movement is growing in opposition to AI without safeguards. The American people don't want AI to replace human beings,” said Brendan Steinhauser, a Republican strategist and CEO of the Alliance for Secure AI, a bipartisan organization that favors AI regulation.
Blue Rose Research, a Democratic research firm run by respected liberal pollster David Shor, recently released data which show 67 percent of people distrust the claim that AI will not create widespread job loss. Fifty-six percent of Americans also distrust the claim that AI will create economic productivity to everyone’s benefit.
Blue Rose’s study found that 57 percent of Americans think AI is advancing too fast and 77 percent are worried about the emergence of AI technology eliminating entire industries. A large portion of Americans, 72 percent, believe AI will change the job market in ways that drive down wages, and 56 percent fear the possibility of themselves or their family members losing their job because of AI.
An additional survey from Verasight had comparable results, with 56 percent saying they are anxious about AI’s growing role in society. Verasight’s survey data indicate that AI adoption is becoming widespread, with two-thirds of Americans saying they used AI tools over the past month. Half of Americans said they used AI tools at least once a week, and 26 percent said they did so daily.
“The findings in this report highlight a real contradiction in how everyday Americans are approaching AI right now. Its adoption has exploded, with nearly two-thirds of Americans saying they've used AI tools in the past month, yet a majority also say they feel anxious about the technology's impact,” said Verasight CEO Ben Leff.
“People worry about losing jobs, losing control over how these systems are used, and about the spread of misinformation and cyber threats. Americans are clearly willing to use AI, but they are still trying to figure out which providers to trust and whether the technology will ultimately work for them or against them.”
The Trump administration has taken a soft-touch approach to AI, the industry-favored outlook on governing the transformational technology. On the state level, the Trump administration has intervened to pressure Republican states out of passing baseline AI safeguards. Last week, the White House unveiled its policy framework for AI governance, an approach primarily focused on blocking state regulations.
The federal guidelines follow an executive order Trump signed in December instructing the Justice Department to file legal challenges against state regulations viewed as being overly burdensome. The White House vowed Friday to translate its AI recommendations into legislation, potentially setting up another clash among D.C. lawmakers whose views on AI do not fall along the typical partisan lines.
Proponents of light AI regulation argue that a “patchwork” of state-level guidelines will slow down innovation and allow stringent blue-state rules to govern the country. AI companies have advocated for a light-touch regulatory approach in part because the industry sees itself as leading the U.S. competition against China for developing cutting-edge AI technology. Simultaneously, the Trump administration has blacklisted frontier AI company Anthropic because CEO Dario Amodei did not want the Pentagon using its industry-leading Claude model for domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons systems. Anthropic is now fighting the Trump administration in court with support from many leading tech firms.
Industry leaders and AI experts have not been shy about the transformational impacts AI will have on the American workforce, with Amodei predicting that AI could potentially eliminate half of entry-level white-collar jobs. AI governance is becoming a prominent issue in the upcoming midterm elections and money from the AI industry is flooding into the political arena. If recent polls are any indication, the Trump administration’s industry-friendly approach could become a political liability for Republican candidates, especially those benefitting from industry backing.
“These polling numbers reflect the incredible arrogance of the leading AI companies. They want the power to change the world, but they refuse to take any responsibility for their actions,” said Jason Van Beek, chief government affairs officer at the pro-regulation Future of Life Institute.
“We see how AI is harming our kids, and yet the companies do everything they can to block commonsense AI guardrails meant to protect our families, including lobbying against child safety legislation in conservative states like Utah. They tell us that AI will cause a ‘white collar bloodbath,’ and then proceed as though this is an acceptable cost of doing business.”
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