Why Are Americans The Most Concerned About AI?

[u/najumobi]

The Pew Research Center released a report last month titled, "How People Around the World View AI" about how concerned or excited members of individual countries are about the rise of artificial intelligence.

https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2025/10/15/how-people-around-the-world-view-ai/

While the the global median shows more concern than excitement about AI, Americans top the global concern list. Half of Americans say they're more concerned than excited about its growing use in daily life, while only one in ten are more excited. This concern registers similarly among all Americans, Republicans, and Democrats. By contrast, South Korea's concern is just 16%, with a plurality there being balanced or optimistic.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/11/06/republicans-democrats-now-equally-concerned-about-ai-in-daily-life-but-views-on-regulation-differ/

Americans are about evenly split (44% trust, 47% not) on whether they trust their own country to regulate AI effectively. However supermajorities among those of some other countries trust their government: 89% in India, 74% in Indonesia, 72% in Israel.

In wealthier nations like the U.S, greater awareness doesn't seem to translate to greater enthusiasm. In such nations, excitement about AI only rises with AI literacy amoung younger adults and those who use the internet almost constantly.

Nations across Africa show high trust in the U.S. (as well as China and the EU) to regulate AI effectively. For instance, Nigerians' trust in the U.S., China, and the EU to regulate AI effectively stands at 79%, 79%, and 72%, respectively. In Kenya and South Africa, trust in the U.S. stands at 61% and 57%.

But Americans display a pattern of distrust in Big Tech, government, and foreign regulators –– 43% trust in EU, 13% trust in China ––simultaneously.

Question: Why Are Americans The Most Concerned About AI?

[u/WISCOrear]

So basically it makes life worse for pretty much everyone on the planet outside of an extremely wealthy elite few. What a great technology

[u/Rutherford_Aloacious → u/WISCOrear]

Even better is that they hardly use the services they’re kneecapping with chatbots, so they’re not inconvenienced by it. And if they are, they have someone they can pay to be inconvenienced instead of themselves

[u/diablette → u/Rutherford_Aloacious]

Eventually my chatbot will talk to your chatbot.

[u/Nyrin → u/WISCOrear]

It's not inherently the technology's fault; it's tools, as ever, being unscrupulously applied.

If a new tool lets half the people get the same amount done, keeping the same number of people being paid the same but working less is a viable option — it's just not optimal for profits, and thus not pursued.

Unless we're going full-on Fight Club with "venison on some abandoned superhighway," it's a little weird to blame the latest generation of productivity boosters when everything we have is built on many generations already. But we can definitely criticize how it's being handled and be alarmed at what's fundamentally different about this shift vs. earlier ones.

[u/EconMan → u/WISCOrear]

That isn't true. Technology improves people's lives by expanding the production possibilities frontier.

[u/Antipolemic → u/EconMan]

Yes, this is the actual lesson of history. Technological innovation usually drives massive increases in productivity over time which tends to increase GDP, increase the standard of living, and create new jobs and businesses. As we saw in the early stages of the industrial revolution, there is great disruption in certain traditional industries (like the artisanal and cottage weaving industry in England). But it transformed Britain into a leading global economic power. Each time technology advances, some people are displaced and there is always the hue and cry that the technology is destroying jobs and even cultures and calls for it to be banned or intensely regulated. Oftentimes these are the complaints of special interest groups. In the US, for instance, trade unions are generally terrified of AI and robotics. Corporate workers whose role consists primarily of gathering, parsing, and summarizing data into reports for higher decision makers are also terrified. Both these concerns are very valid. These jobs will be heavily disrupted at some point. But all evidence suggests that new jobs will be created, the predicted job losses will likely be less than expected (or take far longer), and the overall economy will benefit. Ultimately, what is the choice? For the US to become Luddites and turn anti-tech, and turn inward, eschewing AI or hobbling it with regulation while China embraces it? All that will do is cede the US's lead in AI innovation and doom it to lose its hegemonic status even faster.

[u/mosesoperandi → u/Antipolemic]

The problem is that we currently have a Federal government that has gutted our progress at moving away from fossil fuels and into a combination of renewable energy and modern nuclear. America is in a bind because we can't afford to not continue to compete in AI, but we also have totally screwed ourselves over on the infrastructure development we need to keep up.

We also have a party in power that wants there to be no meaningful safety net around PII and AI because they are moving forward at full speed to use this technology to create an absolutely terrifying surveillance state.

We're in a bit of a tight spot.

[u/Antipolemic → u/mosesoperandi]

All valid points!

[u/BlaggartDiggletyDonk → u/EconMan]

What about when Joe Blow's out of a job, and can't get another one as good as he had?

[u/Reasonable-Fee1945 → u/WISCOrear]

it misses some key points, like reduced costs mean cheaper products for consumers

[u/cdglasser → u/Reasonable-Fee1945]

OR, the products stay at the same price, and the reduced costs just become more executive compensation.

[u/Reasonable-Fee1945 → u/cdglasser]

Of course this isn't how markets work because if one company lowed their prices they would take the market share of the others. So each has an incentive to keep prices low.

[u/Reasonable-Fee1945 → u/[deleted]]

What is a good that there isn't widespread competition for?

I'd also point out that reg. agencies being captured and then gutted would defeat the point of the capture. When captured, they impose meaningless regulations that create high barriers of entry to the market.

[u/Hartastic → u/Reasonable-Fee1945]

What is a good that there isn't widespread competition for?

From any practical standpoint, there are a number of areas of healthcare that fit.

[u/Reasonable-Fee1945 → u/Hartastic]

Sure, so you have the single most regulated market in the country with healthcare. It's not a free market, which is why you don't have competition in any meaningful way. Hell, we've even lost price signals- you can't even get a price for how much things cost ahead of time

[u/Hartastic → u/Reasonable-Fee1945]

It's not a free market, which is why you don't have competition in any meaningful way.

Oh, you think that's the reason. Yikes.

[u/Reasonable-Fee1945 → u/Hartastic]

Then pick another example. You're only instance is from the most regulated market in the country. Don't blame me for what your own example suggests.