AI is losing the narrative among Americans.

In a poll of roughly 1,400 US adults conducted by Quinnipiac University, 55% reported that they felt AI would do more harm than good, up 11% year-over-year. Around 76% reported that they trust AI “hardly ever” or “only some of the time,” and 62% reported not being excited about the technology.

Along with broadly feeling disenchanted with the tech, more than half reported that AI is moving far faster than they expected.

Poll respondents were also generally wary of the tech’s impact on the job market and workforce:

• More than 80% reported that they wouldn’t take a job where an AI program acted as a manager, assigning tasks or schedules
• Around 70% believe that AI will cut the number of job opportunities, up 14% from the previous year’s poll
• And 30% reported being concerned that AI would make their own jobs obsolete, up 9% year-on-year. Despite broader job market concerns, 48% reported that they were not concerned at all about AI taking their own jobs.

"Americans are more worried about what AI may do to the labor market than about what it may do to their own jobs,” Tamilla Triantoro, associate professor in the Quinnipiac University School of Business, said in the report. “People seem more willing to predict a tougher market than to picture themselves on the losing end of that disruption - a pattern worth watching as the technology moves deeper into the workplace."

The poll reflects growing concern and confusion caused by seemingly endless conflicting reports of how AI will impact the job market. Some estimates suggest that AI is already capable of automating a large share of work hours, while others suggest that AI is increasing workloads rather than reducing them. Though one viral report from February painted a bleak, worst-case-scenario picture of how AI could utterly demolish the economy, software engineering jobs are up from last year.

Our Deeper View

The problem with the growing pile of contrary data is that people largely have no idea what to make of it. And often, when confronted with something new, the natural human reaction isn’t to accept it with an open mind, but to rebel against it – especially if that thing threatens everything from their livelihood to the way they live their life. To make people comfortable with it, AI firms may need to shift away from the image that their tech is here to take people's jobs, and instead offer ways to help people gradually transform the work they do without stripping them of their sense of purpose. But that may be a difficult feat, as trigger-happy companies continue to slash their workforces, using AI as an excuse, whether the tech is ready or not.