Most Americans Think AI Will Make Work ‘Worse’

The vast majority of American workers are currently super worried about how the artificial intelligence boom will impact their jobs, according to a new poll.

An Ipsos poll released Monday morning found that most American employees, 67%, believe AI will worsen the nation’s “worker experience” by “eliminating jobs and putting greater pressure on workers to increase productivity.” Meanwhile, 30% of respondents think AI will improve workers’ overall experience by “freeing up time from repetitive tasks” and helping employees to “complete more challenging tasks,” while 3% skipped that survey question, the poll shows.

Some Americans think the nation’s top bosses will benefit the most from AI adoption in the workplace. Sixteen-percent of respondents said “only” business owners or executives, and 35% said “mostly” business owners or executives, compared to 27% who said business owners or executives and workers will benefit equally from the technology.

Few respondents thought AI technology will do much to help those in the U.S. workforce. Just 5% of Americans think that “mostly” U.S. workers will benefit from AI, and 1% said “only” workers will benefit the most from the technology, according to the survey.

Meanwhile, 14% of respondents believe AI being used in the workplace “will not benefit anyone,” and 3% did not answer that survey question, per the poll.

The polling also suggests some U.S. workers are concerned about AI cutting their jobs, while others are split on whether the technology could bolster certain tasks in their workplace or make them more difficult.

Other survey questions gave more detail about what U.S. workers worry about with AI. Only 6% thought AI is about to replace their jobs, but more were concerned AI will make their tasks harder (12%) or would make their work “less fulfilling or satisfying” (12%). About a third of respondents (34%) said AI would improve their jobs “by helping me with some work tasks,” according to the poll.

Another 34% said they expect that AI technology will not impact their jobs at all, while just 2% of respondents skipped the question, per the survey.

The data’s release comes during a time when many people across the U.S. are growing increasingly worried about potential job displacement due to AI. AI slashed about 25,000 U.S. jobs each month over the past year, Fortune reported in April, citing Goldman Sachs data.

Some members of Congress have recently sounded the alarm about AI’s potential future impacts across the American workforce. Republican Michigan Rep. Tim Walberg warned in a June 22 statement that AI “is transforming workplaces across the country faster than any technology in a generation.”

“To keep pace, we must have reliable insight into how these technologies are affecting jobs, skills, and workforce needs,” Walberg continued.

The poll was conducted by Ipsos among 1,533 Americans ages 18-75 from June 11-16. The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 2.7 percentage points at the 95% confidence level for all respondents.