America is growing deeply uncomfortable with AI and it is young people who are leading the charge against it. A new annual report on the AI industry from Stanford University has laid bare a striking and widening gap between what AI experts believe about the technology and what ordinary people actually feel. The findings, released this week, show that public anxiety about AI is rising sharply in the United States, with concerns centred not on futuristic sci-fi fears but on everyday topics such as jobs, healthcare costs, energy bills, and whether the government can even be trusted to keep the technology in check.
Gen Z is angry and getting angrier
The Stanford report’s findings are backed up by a recent Gallup poll, which found that young people, particularly Gen Z, are growing less hopeful and more angry about AI, even as roughly half of them use it daily or weekly. Experts say the frustration makes sense: young people entering the workforce are the ones most likely to feel the direct impact of AI-driven job losses and workplace disruption.
Experts and the public are living in different worlds
The gulf between how AI insiders see the technology and how the general public experiences it has rarely looked wider. According to Pew Research data cited in the Stanford report, 56% of AI experts believe the technology will have a positive impact on the United States over the next 20 years. Among the general public, the mood is far darker: only 10% of Americans said they were more excited than concerned about AI’s growing role in daily life.The divide is even sharper when broken down by sector. A full 84% of experts said AI would have a largely positive impact on medical care over the next two decades. Around half, 44% of ordinary Americans agreed. On jobs, 73% of experts felt positive about AI’s impact on how people work. Only 23% of the public felt the same way. On the economy, 69% of experts expressed optimism. Just 21% of the public shared that view.Nearly two-thirds of Americans, around 64%, told Pew researchers they believe AI will lead to fewer jobs over the next 20 years, a fear that AI leaders have largely dismissed as overblown.
