Poll: Americans say there’s a serious risk of AI destroying humanity A new POLITICO Poll finds that a plurality of Americans favor pausing the development of more advanced AI models, and 63 percent say the technology poses at least a moderate risk of destroying humanity. Illustration by Anna Wiederkehr/POLITICO (source images via Getty) A majority of Americans think artificial intelligence could someday destroy humanity. The stunning new finding from The POLITICO Poll underscores the depth of people’s anxieties about the rapidly developing technology — and how quickly public sentiment around AI has hardened.
Just a few months ago, AI was a nebulous concept for many Americans. Now, lawmakers in both parties are racing to understand how to control its growth. Overall, about two out of three Americans say there is at least a “moderate” risk that advanced AI could destroy humanity, with majorities across parties, genders and age groups holding that view.
Americans who voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 are somewhat more likely to see such a risk (70%) than those who voted for President Donald Trump (60%). Those fears have burst into public view in recent days after the leaders of the nation’s top AI labs — Anthropic’s Dario Amodei and OpenAI’s Sam Altman — called with Elon Musk for slowing the pace of advanced AI development. The rare show of agreement from some of the industry’s fiercest competitors pushed long-simmering warnings about the technology’s dangers into the center of public debate.
And Americans appear inclined to take those warnings seriously. This article is part of an ongoing project from POLITICO and Public First, an independent polling company headquartered in London, to measure public opinion across a broad range of policy areas. You can find new surveys and analysis each month at politico.com/poll.
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AI insiders warning there is a real risk the technology “will kill us all” are doing so because they genuinely believe it, according to roughly half of U.S. adults. Just 26% think these leaders are doing it as a marketing stunt to make their companies’ products seem powerful and important, according to The POLITICO Poll. The survey was conducted by independent London-based Public First Sept. 13 to Sept. 15, as Amodei’s essay was gaining traction, sparking the response from other major tech players.
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