- High awareness, but the public is mostly uneasy while experts are more upbeat. Among U.S. adults, 40% say they’ve heard/read “a lot” about AI, and 51% say AI in daily life makes them more concerned than excited. In contrast, AI experts are far more positive: 47% are more excited than concerned.
- Chatbots: about half have tried them, and most users find them helpful. 47% of U.S. adults say they’ve used an AI chatbot; among users, 79% rate them at least “somewhat helpful” (11% extremely, 22% very, 46% somewhat).
- More Americans expect personal harm than benefit. When thinking about themselves, 43% say increased AI use is more likely to harm them than benefit them; 24% say it’s more likely to benefit them (33% not sure).
- The dominant expectation is job loss (overall and in many specific occupations). 64% think AI will lead to fewer jobs in the U.S. over the next 20 years (5% more jobs). For specific occupations, majorities expect fewer jobs for cashiers (73%), factory workers (67%), software engineers (48%), and journalists (59%).
- Trust is low for high-stakes decisions, and major concerns cluster around deception and privacy. 63% of U.S. adults say AI will not reach a point where they’d trust it to make important decisions for them (13% say it will). On risks, large shares are extremely/very concerned about AI being used to impersonate people (49%+29%), misuse personal information (40%+30%), and provide inaccurate information (34%+32%).
- People feel they have little control over AI in their lives - and want more. Only 14% of U.S. adults say they have “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of control over whether AI is used in their life, while 55% say they’d like more control. AI experts similarly lean toward wanting more control (57%).
- Most want more AI regulation. Experts report low confidence in regulators and companies. U.S. adults are much more likely to worry the U.S. government will not go far enough regulating AI (58%) than that it will go too far (21%). AI experts are similar on direction (56% not far enough), but express low confidence in execution - only 13% have “a great deal/quite a bit” of confidence in the U.S. government to regulate AI effectively, and 16% say the same about U.S. companies developing/using AI responsibly.
