AI Companies Need to Take Concerns Seriously

A few years ago, artificial intelligence (AI) was seen as something borderline whimsical: capable of producing a cartoonish video of Will Smith eating spaghetti, or of spitting out jokes on command. But now AI is advertised as something that you can genuinely trust to help you with your day-to-day job, taxes, shopping, driving, and more. It is something which can create books, art, poetry, and films—including life-like videos of Smith eating his pasta.

But those changes have brought about a dramatic shift in how the public perceives AI. Polling shows that Americans are skeptical of AI, and that skepticism has risen; majorities believe it will worsen creative thinking and problem solving, and are “more concerned than excited” about the new technology. In 2025, only 10 percent registered as being “more excited than concerned.”

Part of this is simply the result of AI being a new technology; a sudden, feasible paradigm-shifting phenomenon is going to result in skepticism, particularly when it appears in everything, everywhere, all at once. But there is skepticism, and then there is a 10 percent approval rating. If a political figure’s rating sinks that low, it’s a DEFCON 1 situation—because once you get that low, views become baked in, and they become incredibly hard to reverse.

Read more at The National Interest.