Americans believe that artificial intelligence will greatly affect workers, but not them, according to a recent Pew survey.
Pew Research Center report entitled “Artificial intelligence in hiring and evaluating workers: What Americans think(Opens in a new tab)Sixty-two percent of Americans say they think AI will have a significant impact on workers in general, but only 28 percent think they will be affected personally.
Notably, this survey was conducted in December 2024, just one month after ChatGPT was launched. Since then, we’ve seen the launch of Microsoft’s AI-powered Bing, Google’s chatbot, OpenAI’s new GPT-4 model, and countless other AI-powered tools launched by companies and independent developers alike. This feels like a long time ago in our new AI-powered reality.
Google launched Bard despite major ethical concerns of its employees
A “higher percentage” of those surveyed believe that the effects of AI in the workplace will be harmful rather than beneficial. The results are reminiscent of the strange human tendency to believe that one is not exposed to the bad things that happen. it’s called optimism bias(Opens in a new tab) And it explains why we think we’ll live longer than average, never get divorced, or never get skin cancer.
There seems to be a disconnect here.
Credit: Pew Research Center
Other findings from the survey paint a more plausible picture of human response to AI. Americans broadly oppose the use of artificial intelligence to make final hiring decisions, track workers’ movements, and use facial recognition technology to analyze their expressions. The majority of respondents, 66 percent, also said they did not want to apply for a job that uses AI to make hiring decisions. Feelings are more mixed about whether AI will be better or worse at screening job applicants, especially when it comes to whether AI eliminates or amplifies racial bias.
Findings about the racial bias of AI are mixed.
Credit: Pew Research Center
But the part that individuals believe they are immune to is what they consider Fourth Industrial Revolution(Opens in a new tab) It highlights an interesting whim in the human psyche. Despite the fact that artificial intelligence is widely used in our daily life, Another bio scan(Opens in a new tab) It found that only 30 percent of Americans correctly identified all of the use cases presented in the survey. Having been told to prepare for the AI revolution, we might have expected it to hit us like a freight train with a flashing neon sign, but the truth is, it has been subtly creeping into our lives for some time.
Given the incredible pace at which generative AI is moving, it’s hard not to wonder how those surveyed will now respond.