AI: What voters really think about artificial intelligence and ChatGPT
A widely despised industry sipping the Americans' water – And drive up their electricity bills – as part of a nefarious conspiracy take their jobs. Voters are begging their political leaders to stand up to these damned corporations. Yet the Democratic Party cannot decide whose side it is on.
At least some Democratic activists and commentators suggest.
This week Politico published a report titled: “Americans hate AI. Which party will benefit?In it, a host of Democratic lawmakers and policy professionals call on their party to be, in Politico's words, “proud, loud and unapologetic about AI.”
Their case is simple: the development of AI is deeply unpopular. Voters are concerned about the data center construction boom because they fear it will drive up energy costs and harm the environment. And they fear that AI could put them out of work.
The Trump administration is too tied to the tech industry to express this anti-chatbot fervor, activists argue. Therefore, Democrats have an opportunity to take ownership of a winning issue — one that unites a broad, populist coalition of blue-collar and white-collar workers.
However, to achieve this effectively, it is not enough to “minimally regulate” artificial intelligence while signaling a “friendly attitude toward technology companies building AI.” Rather, the party must define itself in opposition to technology.
This could prove to be good political advice. Yet it is based on a distorted interpretation of public opinion data. In reality, Americans' feelings about AI are more complicated than progressive consultants and experts like to imagine.
Americans are increasingly afraid of their computers
There is no question that U.S. voters are fearful of AI in general and, increasingly, of data center expansion in particular. To name a few recent survey results that illustrate this unease:
- 50 percent of Americans said so Pew Research Center in June that they were “more worried than excited” about “the increasing use of artificial intelligence in daily life,” compared to just 10 percent who were “more excited than worried.”
- Seventy-one percent of voters fear that AI will “put too many people permanently out of work,” one said Reuters/Ipsos poll from August.
- According to a November poll, voters support a ban on building data centers near their homes by a margin of 41 percent to 37 percent Morning Consult pollwhile 58 percent say “AI data centers” are partly responsible for rising electricity prices.
As one would expect given these numbers, Americans support the general concept of greater regulation of the AI industry:
- 61 percent told Ipsos that the government should regulate AI to ensure economic stability.
- By a margin of 80 to 9 percent, voters said Gallup that the government should prioritize “maintaining AI safety and data security rules” over “developing AI capabilities as quickly as possible.”
Voters are not entirely against the machines
Yet Americans do not seem to feel “hatred” toward AI, but rather unease and ambivalence.
In one current survey At Democratic data firm Blue Rose Research, 40.1 percent said they were “optimistic” about artificial intelligence, compared to just 35.6 percent who said they were pessimistic (the rest were uncertain).
A December poll from the left-leaning pollster navigator found similar results: 49 percent of voters said they had a positive opinion of AI, while only 41 percent said they had a negative opinion.
Meanwhile, in a Gallup poll, 79 percent of Americans say that “important“For the United States to have the most advanced AI technology in the world, while 56 percent supported increasing government spending on artificial intelligence research. It is difficult to imagine how a political party could be “unconditionally opposed” to AI and at the same time represent these preferences.
In any case, AI is not the biggest concern for the typical American right now. This month, an Associated Press-Norc poll voters asked To name five issues they want the government to prioritize in 2026 – just 3 percent named something to do with technology, AI or social media.
Likewise, in the Navigator survey, only 7 percent of voters named AI as one of the top five issues. Meanwhile, 75 percent of voters said they had heard “little” or “nothing” about building new data centers in their communities.
Remarkably, some polls cited by anti-AI populists actually agree with these results. The Politico article referenced a Pew study showing that “only 17 percent of Americans believe AI will have a positive impact on the U.S. in the next 20 years.” Liberal commentator Josh Marshall throw that as evidence that “AI is only just ahead of child molesters in the public imagination.”
But in the Pew survey, only 35 percent said AI would have one Negative Impact on the United States. In other words, two-thirds of the population said the technology would have either a positive or neutral impact on American life. The proportion of voters who would say the same about child molesters is probably significantly lower.
The robot apocalypse could change things
Democrats might still be wise to take a more hostile stance toward AI. Voters are concerned about technology and favor greater regulation. And they are increasingly sympathetic to the argument that data centers are driving up their electricity bills.
Furthermore, it could be plausible that the public will increasingly oppose artificial intelligence in the near future. When overinvesting in data centers causes a problem Financial crash – and/or when AI actually generates Mass unemployment – The backlash against technology would certainly increase.
At the moment, however, it is far from clear whether either party can dramatically increase its popular support by unconditionally declaring itself “anti-AI.”
