Two-thirds of Americans say Trump is wrong and AI could destroy humanity, poll finds

A new poll has found that a majority of Americans believe AI could pose a threat to humanity, despite President Donald Trump playing down the risks.

The new Politico poll found that even a majority of Republican voters believe that AI poses a potential risk to the survival of the human race.

According to the online survey of 2,064 people, 70 percent of those who voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 thought there was either a moderate risk (29 percent), significant risk (24 percent) or an almost certainty (17 percent) of AI destroying humanity. Some 21 percent said there was either a small risk (14 percent) or no risk at all (7 percent), while the rest said they didn’t know.

Of Trump voters, 61 percent thought there was either a moderate risk (27 percent), a significant risk (17 percent) or an almost certainty (17 percent) of AI ending human existence, while 20 percent thought the risk very low, 9 percent thought there was no risk, and 10 percent said they didn’t know.

Overall, 63 percent of respondents thought there was either a moderate risk (26 percent), a significant risk (20 percent), or a near certainty (17 percent), with 15 percent saying the risk was very small, 7 percent saying no risk at all and 15 percent saying they didn’t know.

The survey comes days after Trump himself rejected the idea of any deliberate slowdown in the development of AI following warnings from those working in the industry that the technology could get out of hand. In an unusual move, some of the leading pioneers of AI – including Sam Altman of OpenAI, Dario Amodei of Anthropic and Elon Musk of xAI – suggested they were sympathetic to slowing down development.

Last week Jacob Coxon, a former Anthropic researcher, claimed he had quit the company because those building AI are "gambling with our lives" and that they “earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.”

His resignation and subsequent cable news interviews kicked off a debate over whether the threat is real, or – as some critics suggested – marketing hype, or efforts by the big AI companies to slow down rivals by introducing new regulations.

Trump reacted by claiming any suggestion of AI being a threat was a "hoax" and comparing it to global warming and some of the accusations he has faced during his political career.

"I am the Hoax Buster, and I’m right now breaking another Hoax — That AI is going to take over, consume, and destroy the World, and that Robots will be marching into our Cities, and getting rid of us all! This is even wilder than the RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA HOAX, or the Global Warming Scam. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP," he wrote on Tuesday.

The president also said that he was himself the only “guardrail” that the emerging technology required, writing: “The only control or 'guardrails' that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!"

Trump also warned that major restrictions on AI development in the U.S. could hand the initiative to rivals in China. He wrote: “Don’t kill the Golden Goose.”

Several recent incidents involving AI have appeared to prove that the technology can act independently from human oversight. In July OpenAI admitted that an experimental version of ChatGPT had gone rogue and attacked another AI company.

In Congress, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have said action is needed to monitor how AI develops.

Some Democrats are reportedly considering the creation of a House select committee on AI should they be able to take back control of the House following the midterm elections. Senator Bernie Sanders, who has frequently called for reforms in the AI industry to protect American jobs and health, claimed that what he called Trump’s ignorance about AI was “truly embarrassing.”

“Congress under both Democratic and Republican control has been asleep at the wheel,”he said during the the Pro-Human Assembly in D.C. on Tuesday. “And we now have a president whose ignorance regarding this issue is truly embarrassing.”

On the GOP side, Senator John Kennedy proposed a bill to force AI developers to include a “kill switch” in their programs.

Meanwhile, other issues related to AI are continuing to concern Americans. A survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago found that 53 percent of Americans are “extremely” or “very” concerned about the environmental effects of AI data centers. That figure is up from 41 percent a year ago.

Michael Greenstone, who directs the University of Chicago institute which collaborated on the survey, said: “We’re undertaking a massive experiment in real time, and I don’t think there’ll be any putting the milk back in the bottle. Change is scary, and I think some of that is being reflected here.”

Gallup found in May that 7 out of 10 Americans oppose data centers being built in their towns.

Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat, has been critical of free-rein AI development, and said he recognizes that fears over AI is a "dominant issue" for voters.

“We have to stop AI from poisoning our kids, our culture, and destroying millions of jobs,” he told Politico. “This is an immediate crisis, Donald Trump has made it clear where he stands with the AI companies, and the Democratic Party has to put this question to the electorate this November.”