A recent poll by the Pew Research Center found that the majority of US adults think that artificial intelligence will “worsen people’s ability to think creatively,” while half say the tech will deteriorate our ability to form meaningful relationships.
And now, according to the center’s latest poll, it turns out that it’s not just Americans quickly becoming distrustful and disillusioned with the tech — much of the rest of the world is growing deeply concerned about AI as well.
According to the poll, which was conducted in the spring of this year, a significant proportion of people across 25 countries are now “more concerned than excited about [AI’s] growing presence in daily life.”
Adults in the United States, Italy, Australia, and Brazil were proportionally most concerned. Excitement, in general, was muted; there wasn’t a single country in which more than 30 percent of adults said they were “more excited than concerned” about the tech.
“In no country surveyed is the largest share more excited than concerned about the increasing use of AI in daily life,” the Pew Research Center noted.
The same poll also showed an interesting correlation between income and AI literacy. Roughly half of adults in wealthier countries, such as Japan, Germany, and France, had heard “a lot” about AI, while only 14 percent and 12 percent said the same in India and Kenya, respectively.
Educated adults were more likely to say that they were excited about AI. Those who said they “use the internet almost constantly” also said they were mainly excited.
That’s despite previous research finding that trust in AI falls among people as they become more AI literate. A recent report by academic publisher Wiley also found that scientists are expressing less trust in AI than they did in 2024, when it was decidedly less advanced.
A median of 55 percent of adults across the 25 countries said they had “at least some trust in their nation’s ability to regulate AI.” In the US, 47 percent of adults said they had “not too much” or “no trust” in their government to effectively regulate AI, while only 44 percent said they had either “a lot of” or “some trust,” reflecting a possible “partisan division.”
Other wealthy nations, including Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands, showed much higher levels of trust.
The topic of AI regulation has become a major point of contention in the US, with Republican lawmakers balking at passing any meaningful rules.
Meanwhile, the Trump White House continues to double down by dismantling the few existing rules that were established during the last administration, effectively allowing the industry to continue to spread its tendrils into every aspect of our lives unchecked.
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