Americans Sour On AI Poll After Poll, Leaving Both Parties Out In Cold

Americans’ growing fears about artificial intelligence followed them to the polls Tuesday and spread across party lines.

Seventy-six percent of voters reject building data centers in their local community, and 43 percent do not trust either party to tackle AI, according to early CNN exit poll results. These findings reflect similar results from national polling this year, which showed voters were torn about which party could be trusted to handle their AI concerns.

Out of 79,669 respondents, 23 percent of voters said AI and data centers were “crucial” to their vote, and 33 percent responded that AI and data centers were “a major factor” in their vote, CNN’s exit poll results showed. Voters who called the issue “crucial” backed Democratic House candidates 66 percent to 31 percent.

Fifty-seven percent of voters said AI will mostly hurt society, while 24 percent responded that the technology would mostly help society, the CNN data showed.

Similarly, an AP-NORC poll released Oct. 8 found that thirty-nine percent of adults said neither party could reliably handle AI. Adults in the AP-NORC poll also expressed concern about AI advancement, with 81 percent responding that it is “extremely/very important” to keep AI under the control of humans.

Another New York Times/Siena poll, conducted from Sept. 8 to 13, found 61 percent of likely voters opposed building data centers to power AI, which included 47 percent of Republicans.

However, AI and data centers were not the top issue for voters.

Ninety percent of voters felt that government corruption was a “crucial/major factor” to their vote, and 89 percent responded that cost of living was a “crucial/major” factor, according to CNN’s poll.

In 21 toss-up House districts, though, 43 percent of voters said they trust Democrats more on regulating AI, compared to 36 percent for Republicans, according to a Guidant Polling and Strategy survey first reported by the Daily Caller News Foundation on Monday. Eighty percent of voters in the same poll would be more inclined to support a candidate for congress who backed “common-sense” AI regulation.