Public opinion in the United States is turning more cautious toward artificial intelligence, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll of about 1,400 adults. The survey suggests that more Americans now see AI as a threat than a benefit, while concerns about employment and trust in the technology continue to rise.
Fifty-five percent of respondents said they believe AI will do more harm than good, an 11-point increase from last year, according to the poll. Trust in the technology also appears low. Roughly 76% said they trust AI hardly ever or only some of the time, and 62% said they are not excited about it.
The survey found a broader sense of unease about the speed of AI's development. More than half of those surveyed said the technology is advancing faster than they expected. That sense of acceleration may be adding to the public's uncertainty as AI systems become more visible in workplaces, consumer products, and daily tasks.
Worries about labor market disruption stood out as one of the clearest themes in the poll. More than 80% of respondents said they would not accept a job in which an AI system acted as a manager by assigning tasks or schedules. Around 70% said they believe AI will reduce the number of available jobs, up 14 points from the previous year's survey.
The poll also found that 30% of respondents are worried AI could make their own jobs obsolete, up 9 points year over year. At the same time, nearly half of those surveyed, 48%, said they are not worried at all about losing their own job to AI.
Tamilla Triantoro, an associate professor at the Quinnipiac University School of Business, said in the report that Americans appear more focused on the broader labor market than on their personal job security. She said people seem more willing to expect a tougher employment environment than to imagine themselves as the direct losers in that shift.
The poll lands amid a noisy and often contradictory public debate over how AI will affect work. Different studies and forecasts have reached different conclusions. Some analyses suggest AI could automate a significant share of work hours, while others argue that the technology is increasing workloads rather than reducing them.
That split has helped fuel confusion around AI's real economic impact. Recent reports have ranged from bleak warnings about widespread disruption to more mixed signals showing continued demand for certain technical roles. The source material notes, for example, that software engineering jobs are up from a year ago even as some observers warn of deeper labor market effects ahead.
For AI companies, the results may reinforce a challenge that has been building for some time. Public enthusiasm may be harder to sustain if the technology is increasingly associated with job loss, management automation, and uncertainty about the future of work. The poll suggests that many Americans are not yet sold on AI's promise, and that concerns about its consequences may be taking hold faster than confidence in its benefits.