US and European consumers agree on AI concerns

The US and Europe might be far apart when it comes to how and when to regulate artificial intelligence, but according to new data from Morning Consult, consumer sentiment in both regions is more or less aligned.

Surveys conducted in the US, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK in June and July highlighted consumer apprehension: Only 32% of US consumers and between 26% and 35% of European consumers said they believed AI technologies could be “easily controlled,” and similar numbers said they believed AI would be developed “responsibly.”

At the same time, 52% of US consumers and 41%–61% of surveyed European consumers said “AI is the future of technology.”

Regulatory efforts are popular with a majority of consumers: 55% of US consumers and 58% to 66% of European consumers supported “heavy government regulation of AI development.”

Morning Consult lead tech analyst Jordan Marlatt said the alignment between the two regions on government regulation is one of the most interesting takeaways from the data.

“We’re seeing a lot of demand for regulating an emerging industry among US consumers, and this is a country that, more traditionally than Europe, is more skeptical of regulating industry,” Marlatt told Tech Brew. “We see a lot of concerns around how foreign powers might use generative AI to influence our elections, for example. A lot of that unknown is driving this sentiment.”

AI anxiety: US and European consumers appeared to be more or less aligned on which aspects of AI warrant concern, but had different priorities.

For example, “personal data privacy” was the No. 1 concern in the US, France, and Germany, and the No. 2 concern in Spain. In the UK, where the top concern was “tech companies irresponsibly developing AI,” data privacy dropped to fifth place. And in Italy, where the top concern was “children accessing AI tools,” personal data privacy didn’t even make the list.

Marlatt anticipates forthcoming regulation in Europe to emphasize personal data privacy.

“France and Germany are obviously huge influences in where the EU is going to go in terms of regulatory efforts, and data privacy [issues] are top concerns there,” he explained. “Right now the [draft] AI Act is not exclusively about data privacy within AI, but I think we’re going to see a lot more regulatory efforts that hit at that point very specifically.”

When it comes to the spread of misinformation, the six countries Morning Consult surveyed were slightly more divided; consumers in the US, France, and Italy reported lower levels of concern about misinformation than their counterparts in the UK, Germany, and Spain, who ranked it toward the top of their lists.

Interest and excitement in AI peaked around March, Marlatt said. “That’s definitely a period when the optimism was outweighing any pessimism around the future of that technology,” he explained.

“But since then, a lot of that excitement has given way to those concerns, and kind of the ‘What’s next?’”