Morning Consult | Axios Partnership Survey on Growing AI Concerns Among U.S. Adults

Key Takeaways

• U.S. adults don’t seem to know what to anticipate when it comes to AI, with an even split in expectations that AI will make their life better (27%), have no impact (23%) or make their life worse (25%) — and another 25% saying they don’t know what to expect. 

• About 2 in 3 U.S. adults said they are concerned that other countries will use AI to gain a competitive advantage in technological advancements over the United States, while about half said they are concerned they’ll be affected by AI taking their job or the job of someone they rely on. 

• Still, employed U.S. adults are split between feeling that in the next five years, AI will make their job easier (34%) or have no impact (31%), outweighing the share who feel it will make their job harder (23%). 

• Since August, feelings that AI will negatively impact trust in elections has grown. There has been a 6 percentage point increase among the share of U.S. adults who said they think AI will negatively impact trust in candidate advertisements for upcoming U.S. elections — from 35% in August to 41% in October — and a 5-point increase in feeling AI will negatively impact trust in the outcome of U.S. elections — from 35% in August to 40% in October. 

• There has also been a 5-point increase among U.S. adults since August in feeling that misinformation spread by AI will have an impact on who wins the 2024 presidential election, with 58% agreeing in October, compared with 53% who said the same in August. This seems largely due to people who previously didn’t have an opinion on the matter now having an opinion, as the share who said they didn’t know dropped 4 points.