As AI grows more capable, warnings from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei have intensified the debate over how closely its development should be regulated. Policymakers have yet to settle on an approach, leaving U.S. voters with two related questions: how should policymakers balance oversight with the success of U.S. AI companies, and should they support measures that slow AI development?
If you listen to the President or some of his detractors, this is a zero-sum game. However, Americans are much more nuanced than our political discourse would have us believe. A majority of Americans support a balance between regulation and ensuring US based AI companies are successful, while a little over a third want most focus to be on regulation, and just 1 in 10 think the focus should be on making sure that AI companies succeed.
At the same time, two-thirds of Americans support a slowdown on AI development (aka what the big companies are asking for), while just 11 percent are opposed to the idea. Not surprisingly, there are differences in opinion based on demographics, such as generation and also AI use, but the differences are probably not as big as you might think.
Balance Please
When asked how to divide policy attention between regulation and helping U.S. AI companies succeed, just over half (52%) are looking for a balanced approach between the two options. At the same time, more than a third (37%) want more emphasis on regulations. Just 11% feel the focus should be on ensuring US companies succeed.
We asked this same question in June of this year, and the views have held relatively steady over the past three months, even with many news stories about AI models going rogue and attacking other companies. While more time is needed to see if movement within demographic groups is real or just noise, it is quite clear that movement for most groups has been between a balanced approach and focusing more on regulations; very few groups are moving towards focusing on companies succeeding.
One of the bigger shifts over the past three months was generational. From June to September, the share of Gen Z Americans favoring a focus on regulation fell from 29% to 22%, while Boomers rose from 35% to 42%. Gen Z respondents were also more likely to favor company success, increasing +9 percentage points from 9% to 18%. Despite these shifts, a majority of Gen Z Americans (60%) are looking for a balanced approach between the two (down 2 points from June). Over 2 in 5 Boomers (42%) would like the focus to mostly be on regulation, while 39% of GenX and 35% of Millennials agree.
Interestingly, the frequency of AI use has very little effect on the views on the best approach to take. Among those who never use AI (28% of the population), 46% feel the focus should be on regulation, and 45% are looking for a balanced approach. One in three (29%) of daily AI users feel the focus should be on regulation, while 62% are looking for a balanced approach. In the surprising category is the group that has the lowest concentration of those feeling that the focus should be on AI companies succeeding: daily users of AI (8%), although the numbers in the other cohorts are not much higher.
In our hyper-partisan world, the expectation is that we would see large differences in the viewpoints among Trump and Harris voters. This was not quite the case in June, with an equal 53% of both cohorts looking for a balanced approach. There was a slight difference three months ago when it came to the concentration of those who wanted more focus to be on AI company success. In early summer, 17% of Trump voters wanted more focus on company success compared to 10% of Harris voters who felt the same way. Currently, Trump voters have moved away from company success. Just 13% report favoring this approach currently, while Harris voters dropped to 7%.
Although most Americans are looking for a balanced approach to regulations and company success, a clear majority support the idea of an AI slowdown for frontier models. Overall, 67% are in favor of an AI slowdown, with 22% in the middle, and only 11% opposed to the idea. Similar to the overall view on the approach to AI, daily users are the most likely to support an AI slowdown, and in this case the differences are not minimal.
More than 4 in 5 daily AI users (83%) support the slowdown plan, while just 61% of those who never use AI are in support. Among the daily users, a majority (54%) strongly support the slowdown, again the highest concentration of user types. Just 4% of daily AI users are opposed to the idea of a slowdown, while 15% of those who never use AI feel the same way.
Democrats and Republicans reported nearly identical levels of overall support for a slowdown, despite Trump’s insistence that a slowdown would just ensure that China becomes the world AI leader. Seventy (70) percent of Trump voters support a slowdown, split close to evenly between those who strongly support the idea and those who support it less strenuously. Just 11% of Trump voters oppose the idea of a slowdown. Among Harris voters, support is slightly higher for a slowdown (75%), and opposition is slightly lower (8%).
What is arguably the most interesting finding is that a majority of Americans who feel that the regulatory focus should be on US companies succeeding support a slowdown. Fifty-three (53) percent of Americans who take a company-first view support a slowdown while just 24% oppose the idea. Three in five Americans who feel there should be a balanced approach to the regulations support a slowdown, as do 80% of those who feel the focus should be on regulations.
Conclusion
The two questions around AI policy reveal a clear picture of where Americans are when it comes to regulating AI. The majority of respondents support a slowdown in AI development, and a majority are looking for a balanced approach between regulations and helping US companies succeed. These views cannot be viewed as a Luddite view of the work since daily use of AI increases the odds of wanting more focus on regulation and support for a slowdown.
Given the non-forward movement that happens in Washington, D.C., when it comes to dealing with tech, it is unlikely we will see anything comprehensive anytime soon, but a balanced approach is definitively what Americans are looking for.
