63 percent believe AI could destroy humanity: Survey

A majority of Americans are concerned that artificial intelligence poses grave risks to the future of humanity, according to a new poll released on Wednesday.

The POLITICO survey found that 63 percent of U.S. adults believe this technology could someday destroy mankind.

Twenty-six percent of respondents said there was only a “moderate risk” of this result, while 20 percent indicated a “significant risk” and 17 percent said it was “almost certain.”

The survey followed warnings from several current and former AI company employees last week about the dangers of this technology. Jacob Coxon, a former researcher for both OpenAI and Anthropic, accused the companies of “gambling with our lives.”

When asked about the motivations behind these warnings, 51 percent of respondents said these AI employees “genuinely believe” what they are saying, while 26 percent believed it is a “marketing move.” Twenty-two percent of those surveyed said they didn’t know.

On Saturday, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei announced several measures he recommended all AI companies adopt to “pace” the development of this technology and allow for proper safeguards to be installed.

Elon Musk, the CEO of xAI, and OpenAI leader Sam Altman joined Amodei’s call for a slowdown last week.

“I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier,” Altman wrote in a social media post . “This has been a primary topic of discussions we’ve had at OpenAI in recent weeks.”

Lawmakers in both parties have also called for more safeguards and oversight on this technology. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) pointed to Coxon’s warning as evidence that it was “time to pump the brakes & take action NOW” on AI.

President Trump pushed back against these concerns, noting competition with China to develop cutting-edge technology in this industry. The president is scheduled to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Washington, D.C., next week.

“We already have tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power over these companies!” Trump wrote in a Monday Truth Social post. “There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China.”

The survey also probed respondents what they would do if confronted with a scenario in which they were working on developing an AI product that “might destroy humanity” but knew other countries were likely working on the same technology.

Sixty-two percent of respondents said they would “stop working on it” and expect other labs to do the same, while 38 percent said they would continue developing this model in the hopes of preventing the other labs from creating a dangerous product.

The POLITICO poll was conducted among 2,064 U.S. adults from Sept. 13 to 15 with a margin of error of approximately 2.2 percentage points.