Only 1 in 10 Americans Say "AI Will Be Beneficial"... 55% Believe It Will Threaten Humanity Eventually

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwak Min-jae] With the release of ChatGPT, generative artificial intelligence (AI) that responds like a human is gaining attention, but Americans still do not seem confident about it.

[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

According to a survey conducted by Monmouth University in New Jersey, USA, from the 26th to the 30th of last month targeting 805 American adults, only 9% of respondents believed that AI would be beneficial to society.

About half of the respondents, 46%, answered that AI would be both beneficial and harmful to a similar extent, while 41% responded that it would ultimately be harmful. Additionally, more than half of Americans, 55%, expressed concern that AI could someday pose a risk to humanity, and 3% answered that they did not know.

This is not significantly different from the results of a survey conducted by the same university in April 2015 targeting 1,005 American adults. At that time, 11% responded that AI would be beneficial, 42% said it would be largely harmful, and 43% thought it would be about the same.

Furthermore, in this recent survey, only 19% believed that AI technology would help jobs or the economy, while 73% thought it would not be helpful.

Also, 34% of respondents thought AI technology would improve the quality of human life, which was less than the 56% who thought it would not.

However, compared to 2015, the percentage of people who had heard of AI increased significantly to 91%, up from 70% eight years ago.