While Washington argues about whether AI development should be slowed down, the Pew Research Center asked 42,151 adults across 36 countries, plus 8,607 people in the US, what they make of it. The answer is blunter than you might expect.
In 34 of 37 countries, people expect fewer jobs
The question was whether AI will mean more or fewer jobs over the next 20 years. In 34 of the 37 countries, the second answer wins. A sizeable share is unsure: at least a fifth in many places, around four in ten in some middle-income countries.
Worry rises with wealth. In Australia, South Korea and the US, roughly seven in ten adults say AI will cost jobs. In the US, the only country where Pew has asked this before, that share is up seven points in two years — and it has grown most among 18- to 34-year-olds.
Young people worry more than older ones in a long list of countries: Canada, France, Singapore and Sweden, but also India, Indonesia and Malaysia. In eleven mostly high-income countries, women are likelier than men to expect job losses; in France the gap is ten points.
Inequality follows the same pattern. More people expect AI to widen the gap between rich and poor than to narrow it. In South Korea, Australia, the US, Greece and Canada, around four in ten say so. Nowhere does more than a quarter expect AI to reduce inequality, and in 29 countries that figure is in single digits. In the US, the gap between liberals and conservatives on this question is 31 points.
The German finding runs the other way
It gets interesting on a different question: whether you feel more concerned than excited about AI overall. Across all 37 countries, a 37 percent median is mainly concerned and a 41 percent median is both at once. Israel is the only country where more people are primarily excited than primarily concerned.
Pew uses Germany to illustrate a pattern that turns up in about half the countries: people who have read or heard a lot about AI are less likely to be worried about it. Among Germans with high AI awareness, 26 percent are more concerned than excited, 59 percent are equally both, and 15 percent are more excited. Among those who have heard little or nothing, it’s 41, 51 and 8 percent.
That sits oddly next to another number from the same survey: on jobs, in around half the countries it is precisely the well-informed who expect losses. Read carefully, both fit. People who know a lot about AI are likelier to think it replaces work — and still less afraid of the technology itself.
Knowledge calms, but not everything
Worry is growing. Compared with last year, the share who are more concerned than excited is up nine points in Sweden, eight in Poland, seven in the Netherlands, six in Hungary and four in Australia. In the US, the share of 18- to 34-year-olds who are primarily concerned has jumped from 40 to 55 percent since 2024. Today, under-35s are as worried as the over-50s — five years ago the older group was clearly more sceptical.
Two things follow for this week’s argument. First: anyone complaining about a spiral of fear, as Bryan Cantrill did, is describing a mood that wasn’t made in San Francisco. It was already there in Australia and South Korea.
Second, and this is the uncomfortable half: the German finding suggests that explaining more dampens fear of the technology — but not the expectation that jobs will go. Anyone hoping to fix this with better communication is mixing up two different worries.
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