A 50-Point Gap: How Experts and the Public See AI Differently
While AI insiders are bullish on AI’s impact, the public remains far more skeptical, especially on trust.
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As artificial intelligence advances, opinions on the technology are divided into two camps: the public and AI experts. According to a recent annual AI report by Stanford University, 73% of U.S. industry experts are optimistic that AI will have a positive impact on how people do their jobs, compared with just 23% of the general population, a 50-point gap.
A similar divide can be seen in the impact on the economy (69% vs. 21%), K–12 education (61% vs. 24%), and medical care (84% vs. 44%).
Notably, both groups showed low optimism in domains related to trust and social connection, including elections, news, and personal relationships.
In a forward-looking survey (to 2035), the U.S. public again expressed a more pessimistic outlook than AI experts. The former believed AI was more likely to have a negative impact on key human traits such as thinking, learning, and creativity.
“U.S. adults are more likely than AI experts to anticipate negative effects on metacognition (53% vs. 36%), defined as the ability to think analytically about one’s own thinking process, and decision-making (48% vs. 30%), which refers to problem-solving abilities,” the report read.
Additionally, 51% of U.S. adults and 34% of experts expect AI to have a negative impact on social and emotional intelligence, often defined as the ability to understand and manage social interactions. Concern about mental well-being is high across both groups, with 55% of adults and 53% of experts saying AI will have a negative effect.
General sentiments slip into opinions around the expected timeline and scale as well. A survey by the Longitudinal Expert AI Panel (LEAP), conducted by the Forecasting Research Institute, found that, based on 68 forecasts, experts predicted much faster AI progress than the public did.
The fear of job loss continues to shape public sentiment about AI’s impact.
Against 39% of AI experts, 64% of the public feel AI will lead to fewer jobs a few decades down the line. Only 14% of citizens and 33% of experts feel the technology won’t make much difference to job status.
When asked about specific occupations, public and AI experts identified certain jobs as higher risk of automation than others, including cashiers, journalists, and software engineers. Among other professions, truck drivers show an interesting statistic: 33% of adults believe it won’t be affected, while 62% of experts predict a greater risk to the profession.
