81% of Americans Say Safety Over AI Innovation... Support Mandatory Safety Standards

Amid the global spread of anxiety over the risks of artificial intelligence (AI) models, a survey showed that the vast majority of Americans support requiring AI companies to enforce independent safety standards for their models.

This demand remained unchanged even if safety standards were to slow down the pace of technological development.

According to Bloomberg on October 1 local time, a survey conducted by Quinnipiac University in the United States of 1,202 American adults in late September showed that 91% answered that it is "very important" (74%) or "somewhat important" (17%) for the U.S. to establish safety measures for AI systems.

Eighty-one percent of respondents said safety should take priority over the pursuit of innovation.

The poll results came after AI industry leaders who attended a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump agreed to voluntary regulations on safety issues.

Americans also view AI industry giants with skepticism.

Seventy-four percent of respondents said they do not trust the executives of AI companies, and 53% believed that AI will cause more harm than good in daily life.

Amid growing concerns over an AI crisis, heightened by incidents such as the hacking of Hugging Face by an OpenAI agent in July, 73% of respondents believed that future AI could pose an existential threat to humanity, and 77% answered that development speed should be slowed down or halted.

Brian O'Neill, associate dean of the School of Computing and Engineering at Quinnipiac University, said, "While there is significant concern about the possibility of future AI threatening humans, a majority of Americans are far more concerned about the possibility that AI used by people could harm other people."

Voices of opposition are also growing against the rapid expansion of technology infrastructure in local communities.

The perception that electricity bills have surged due to the construction of power-hungry AI data centers has fueled this backlash.

Seventy-two percent of survey respondents opposed the construction of new data centers in their local areas, an increase of 7 percentage points from March (65%).

Tamila Triantoro, associate professor at the Quinnipiac University School of Business, said, "Securing community support for the physical infrastructure backing AI could become the industry's most urgent challenge."

In the survey, 69% of Americans answered that staying ahead of China is important, though it was not clear how they weigh this against AI safety concerns.

The nationwide poll was conducted by Quinnipiac University, a prestigious private university in Connecticut, U.S., among 1,202 American adults between September 24 and 27.

The margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.