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Most Americans (65%) say that artificial intelligence (AI) is advancing too quickly, according to the May 29 - June 1 Economist / YouGov Poll. About one in five (22%) say it is advancing at about the right pace and almost no one (1%) thinks it is moving too slowly.
Majorities of Democrats (71%), Independents (59%), and Republicans (66%) say AI is advancing too quickly, though Republicans (28%) are a bit more likely than Democrats (20%) and Independents (19%) to say it is moving at about the right pace. Younger adults are slightly more likely than older Americans to say AI is moving at about the right pace: 28% of adults under 45 say AI is moving at about the right pace, while only 18% of older Americans say the same. Still, majorities in all age groups say AI is moving too quickly.
A similar question on the May 9 - 11 poll found that 71% of Americans say AI advancement is moving too fast and 2% say it is moving too slowly.
While most Americans think AI is advancing quickly, many still see it as less advanced than humans. More Americans say that AI's thinking and reasoning abilities are currently worse than humans (43%) than say AI is about the same (21%) or better than humans (17%).
Democrats and Independents are more likely to rate AI as worse than humans than to rate it as about the same or better. But Republicans' ratings are close to evenly split: 43% say AI is worse than humans, while 42% say it is about the same (24%) or better (18%).
There are more substantial differences in opinion between age groups. Nearly half of adults under 45 say that AI is about the same (27%) or better than humans (21%) at reasoning and thinking, more than the share who say it is worse than humans (38%). In contrast, nearly half (47%) of Americans 45 and older say AI is worse than humans at thinking and reasoning. Less than one-third say it is about the same (17%) or better (14%).
The Economist / YouGov Poll included five statements about AI, both supportive and critical of the technology, adapted from comments by Pope Leo XIV and prominent AI leaders and critics. Majorities of Americans agree with most of the statements. The statements were lightly edited and were not attributed to a specific person in the survey.
The largest share (83%) agree with a statement from the pope's encyclical about AI on AI's lack of ability to know what love, work, friendship, or responsibility mean. A smaller majority (61%) agree with the pope's claim that AI can be embraced to alleviate suffering as long as we do not abandon humanity's capacity for relationship and love. Americans with favorable and unfavorable views of the pope agree with his ideas at similar rates. Since the statements were not attributed to Leo within the survey, this suggests that his ideas about AI are less polarizing than other aspects of his papacy.
Smaller majorities of Americans agree with two comments by CEOs of AI companies: 65% agree with Google's Sundar Pichai that AI will open up new ways of doing things that we cannot even imagine today, and 54% agree with OpenAI's Sam Altman that AI will change jobs in the same way that new technologies have affected work throughout history. Americans are much less likely to agree with a more alarming idea from AI researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky, that if anybody builds an artificial superintelligence, everyone on Earth will die. About one in five (22%) Americans agree with this claim while half (50%) disagree.
While most Americans don't see AI as an existential threat, they are much less likely to think that AI will have positive effects on the economy than to think its effects will be negative. 41% of Americans think AI's effects on the economy will be more negative than positive or entirely negative. Only 17% think the effects will be more positive than negative or entirely positive. Americans are more likely to have a positive view of how AI might affect them personally. Nearly equal shares say AI's impact on them will be somewhat or very positive as say it will be somewhat or very negative (37% vs. 35%). Past YouGov polling has found a similar pattern on many other topics: Americans tend to have a more positive outlook about their own lives than about the lives of other Americans.
Republicans and younger adults are particularly likely to have positive outlooks on AI. Nearly half (46%) of Republicans expect AI to have a positive impact on their lives personally, while only 28% think it will have a negative impact. In contrast, Democrats and Independents are more likely to say AI will have a negative than a positive impact on their personal lives. Republicans, Democrats, and Independents are all more likely to expect AI's effects on the economy to be more negative than positive, but Republicans are more closely split on this question than Democrats or Independents.
Younger adults are more likely than older Americans to expect that AI will have positive effects on their personal lives and the economy. Adults under 45 are more likely to say AI will have a positive impact on their personal lives than to say it will have a negative impact (45% vs. 32%). The opposite is true of Americans 45 and older (31% vs. 38%). While both groups are less likely to say AI will have positive effects on the economy than to say it will have negative effects, the gap is much larger among those 45 and older (14% vs. 45%) than among adults under 45 (20% vs. 36%).
There's little consensus on how much AI will impact Americans' lives: 19% say they expect it will impact their lives a great deal, 33% expect it to have some impact, 26% expect it will affect their lives a little, and 12% think it will have no impact. Younger adults are more likely than older Americans to expect that AI will have a major impact on their lives. Democrats are more likely than Independents and Republicans to say AI will have a great deal or some impact on their lives, while Republicans are more likely than Independents and Democrats to say it will have little or no impact.
Closer to home, many Americans express discomfort with one of the major local impacts of AI development: data centers. The Economist / YouGov Poll defined data centers as large facilities that house computer servers for storing and transmitting data and found that a majority (60%) of Americans would somewhat or strongly oppose building data centers in their communities. Only one-quarter (24%) would somewhat or strongly support such construction. Majorities of Democrats (64%) and Independents (63%) oppose local data center construction, as do about half (52%) of Republicans. Only one-third (34%) of Republicans would support local data-center construction, and even smaller shares of Democrats (22%) and Independents (18%) say the same.
Adults under 30 are more likely than older Americans to support local data-center construction, but this position is in the minority in all age groups. About one-third (32%) of adults under 30 support local data-center construction, while about one in five (22%) older Americans say the same. In contrast, half (50%) of adults under 30 oppose the construction, as do 62% of older Americans.
Outside of their local areas, more Americans see downsides than upsides in data centers. About half (48%) of Americans say new data-center construction is bad for the country, about twice the share who say it is good for the country (22%).
Image: Getty (Antonio Masiello / Stringer)
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