Americans loathe how Trump is handling AI and the numbers keep getting worse
A new poll has shown just how much Americans loathe the way President Donald Trump is handling artificial intelligence.
Just 23 percent of Americans believe Trump has handled artificial intelligence well, while 57 percent say he’s handled the issue poorly, according to a survey from the University of Massachusetts Amherst published Monday.
“The American people despise President Trump when it comes to his handling of artificial intelligence,” CNN’s Chief Data Analyst Harry Enten told viewers Monday.
“Trump’s net approval rating of AI. That’s approval minus disapproval. Look at this overall — he’s 34 points underwater! My goodness gracious! And somehow, that’s become worse over the course of the year because back in March, he was closer to around 25 points underwater,” Enten said, noting that Trump was 61 points underwater with independents on the issue.
The president —known for his own rampant use of AI-generated images and videos on social media, including a photo depicting himself as Jesus and a video depicting the Obamas as apes — has pushed for fewer regulations on the technology as the biggest AI companies called for a slowdown in development in the name of safety.
“You would have to combine [French ocean explorer] Jacques Cousteau with The Little Mermaid to get as far underwater as Donald Trump is with independents on AI,” Enten said on CNN Monday.
“As I said, the American people, and independents especially, absolutely despise President Trump when it comes to this issue that is becoming even more key as we lead up to the midterm elections.”
AI has taken over the stock market, with chipmaker Nvidia being valued at more than $5 trillion, and it has woven into the lives of everyday Americans as they ask their chatbots how to use the ingredients in their fridge to make dinner or how to let their date know that there won’t be a second one.
But behind the AI buzz emerged a fear of what the technology is actually capable of, with former Anthropic employee Jacob Coxon warning amid his resignation last week, “The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.”
Trump has brushed off serious concerns about the safety of AI amid reports of the technology hacking into external systems and being used to answer questions about how to make biological weapons.
“We’ve seen a lot of concerning reports about AI. Should the AI industry slow down or be more regulated?” a reporter asked Trump at the Irish Open Sunday.
“We’re leading China in AI,” Trump replied. “We’re the most sophisticated country in the world. And frankly, I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI, wins.”
The president said the U.S. “could put guardrails, we can do this and that, but I think you have a lot of negative forces that are bringing it up that shouldn’t be bringing it up. And they’re bringing up things that won’t happen.”
Trump then went on a social media posting spree, calling concerns about AI a “hoax.”
“There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China,” he wrote on Truth Social Monday.
Aside from concerns about the potentially dangerous capabilities of AI, many Americans are worried about the construction of data centers that power the technology, citing negative impacts on the environment and their quality of life.
“[Trump] looks at the polling. He looks at what people are saying,” a senior White House official told Politico earlier this month. “Polling isn’t necessarily great on data centers, but it’s incumbent upon us to explain our position. I think that’s part of what he was trying to do.”
In Trump-fashion, the president blamed members of the Democratic Party for a surge in concerns about AI, writing in one of his Truth Social posts Monday, “These are all Radical Left Dumocrats, who never give up, but seldom win. Hopefully, the Voters have seen the light!”
