Over 70% of Americans are concerned about AI’s existential risks, polling shows

A Quinnipiac University national poll strongly suggests that Americans’ fears about AI now go well beyond job losses and energy cost hikes because of new data centers. Fears about AI threatening humanity have gone mainstream. The poll, released Wednesday, found that 73% of Americans are either very concerned (38%) or somewhat concerned (35%) that future AI systems could threaten human survival, while just 25% are either not so concerned (14%) or not concerned at all (11%). More than half of respondents (52%) said they are more concerned that other humans will use AI to do harm to humanity, while a third (33%) said they’re more concerned that autonomous AI agents will do harm to humanity. The poll comes as the Trump administration and the AI industry are both working to rehabilitate AI’s image with the public. On Tuesday, President Donald Trump held a meeting in the Oval Office where AI executives signed a “White House Accord on Super Intelligence. (Trump has ordered the federal government to begin referring to artificial intelligence as “super intelligence.”) The document represents a promise from the AI companies to implement a “robust” set of internal safety controls, as well as…