Survey: Most Americans Believe Artificial Intelligence Has a Negative Impact on Jobs, Businesses

Americans have mixed feelings—but mostly negative—on how the progression of artificial intelligence (AI) will impact jobs and businesses, the 2023 Bentley-Gallup Business and Society Report revealed.

The report, released in October in a collaboration between Bentley University and Gallup pollsters, surveyed people on a range of topics, including how businesses utilize AI.

When asked, “In general, how much do you trust businesses to use artificial intelligence responsibly?” 38 percent of respondents said, “not at all;” 41 percent said, “not much,” and 21 percent said, “a lot/some.”  

Across all education levels, ethnicities, age groups, and political parties, a minority of people answered that they trust businesses “a lot/some” to use AI responsibly.

The survey also asked respondents their opinion on what effect AI will have on the total number of U.S. jobs available over the next ten years, with six percent saying that the number of jobs will grow, 19 percent responding that there will be zero impact on the number of jobs, and 75 percent answering that they believe the number of jobs will decrease.

Across all education, racial, age, and party demographics, those who think AI will decrease the number of jobs range from 66 percent to 80 percent. 

Overall, only one in ten U.S. adults believe AI will do more good than harm.

Half of the respondents believe that AI offers equal amounts of good and harm, while 40 percent replied that the technology will do more harm than good.

By racial category, black and Asian Americans are more likely to believe that AI will either do more good than harm or equal amounts of both. 

Respondents were also given a list of several work tasks and asked to compare how well AI completed them to how well humans did. 

Most respondents thought the jobs that they deemed AI to “perform worse than a human” included “recommend medical advice to me,” “drive me somewhere in a car,” and “recommend which employees a company should hire.”

Considering that 79 percent of survey respondents “do not trust businesses to use artificial intelligence responsibly,” issues may arise as more businesses adopt AI in their models.