64% of Americans Say AI Is Developing Too Fast, AP-NORC Poll Finds

Sixty-four percent of Americans believe artificial intelligence is developing "too fast," according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Only 8% say the technology is moving "too slow," and 27% call the pace "about right."

The survey of 2,140 U.S. adults, conducted Sept. 24-28, also delivers a blunt verdict on Washington: 67% of Americans disapprove of President Donald Trump's handling of AI, and roughly 4 in 10 trust neither the Democratic Party nor the Republican Party on the issue.

The findings arrive as the industry's own leaders — including the heads of companies building frontier AI models — call for a slowdown so government regulation can catch up. Trump has pushed back on slowing AI development, citing concerns that China will gain an advantage. Data centers powering AI projects have become a prominent issue in political races ahead of the midterm elections.

What do Americans want Washington to prioritize?

About 8 in 10 U.S. adults say it is "extremely" or "very" important for the government to ensure AI stays under human control. A similar share wants the government to prioritize protecting the American workforce. Majorities also rate minimizing environmental harm and growing the U.S. economy as highly important.

Further down the list:

• About half of U.S. adults say promoting technological innovation is highly important.
• Slightly fewer say the same about competing with China.

Most Democrats and Republicans agree on the two top priorities — protecting workers and keeping AI under human control. The consensus breaks down after that: Republicans are more likely than Democrats to stress growing the U.S. economy and competing with China, while Democrats are more likely to call it at least "very" important to minimize environmental harm.

The pace-of-development worry also splits along partisan and generational lines. About three-quarters of Democrats say AI is developing "too fast," compared with about half of Republicans. People under 30 express higher levels of concern than people 60 or older.

Who bears the risk? A truck driver in Minnesota

Ron Theusch, a 58-year-old truck driver in rural Alden, Minnesota, said his No. 1 concern is job loss — including his own.

"I can just see a train of self-driving trucks 24/7, just running up and down I-35, loading and unloading. I can just see that happening," Theusch said.

He also invoked a familiar cultural reference: "There was a movie called 'Terminator,' where the robots came back and killed everybody. People relate to that … I don't know where it's going to land. I really don't have anything I can do to control it, you know. It's going to evolve."

Kelly Opp, a 62-year-old Republican in Albuquerque, New Mexico, struck a more measured tone on speed. "Like everything else, once you get that ball rolling, it progresses fast on its own, but I think that it will continue to keep progressing. So the speed doesn't really bother me," she said. Still, she voiced concerns about overuse: "I also feel like it will be overused and can create a lack of personal connections. It can make people lazy because information is just given to them without really having to research things on their own."

Why confidence in both parties is low

Stephanie Stewart, a 53-year-old junior-high science teacher in Sunset, Utah, said she is frustrated by the president's opposition to AI regulation.

"There is no handling of the issue except for we're just going to allow these companies to do whatever they want, and we're not going to regulate them," Stewart said. She uses AI in her own work — creating assignments and assisting with tests — but wants stronger protections: "You've got to protect kids. You've got to protect teens. You've got to protect privacy … we need to try to do something."

On U.S.-China competition, Stewart questioned the race logic: "I don't understand how, because they're doing something as well as us, that we can't be more human about it and more humane about it than just to say, 'Well, they're doing it, so we have to do it.'"

The poll found ambivalence runs deep even among party identifiers. Only about half of Republicans and Democrats say their own party is better equipped to handle AI, and roughly 3 in 10 in each party say neither is. Nearly 2 in 10 Americans trust both parties equally; the rest are split between the two.

"Anyone back in Washington is weak on doing anything for anyone but themselves right now," Stewart said. "Until I see anything coming from anyone, I'm going to be like, 'Yeah, no. You're all just sitting there.'"

The margin of sampling error for the poll, drawn from NORC's probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, is plus or minus 2.9 percentage points. With 8 in 10 Americans demanding human control over AI and two-thirds disapproving of the president's approach, the data signals a electorate ahead of its policymakers — a gap that could reshape the AI debate as the midterms approach.