Poll: AI is looking more partisan

One of the nice things about covering the frontier of technology — large language models, quantum, virtual worlds — is that they’re decidedly less partisan than most policy issues. That might be changing. A new round of polling about voters’ opinions of artificial intelligence reveals early partisan and demographic splits taking shape, all with the first election to take place in an AI-saturated media environment looming on the horizon. The poll conducted by AIPI, a recently formed nonprofit that describes itself as “dedicated to seeking political solutions to potential catastrophic risks from emerging AI technology,” surveyed just over 1,000 voters and found some stark topline results:

• 76 percent of voters prefer candidates who support regulating AI
• 55 percent want that approach to be bipartisan
• 61 percent either “strongly” or “somewhat” support the Senate’s current slate of proposals for AI legislation.

But dig deeper into the poll’s crosstabs and you see something all too familiar to American politics: Voters say they want bipartisan solutions, but have serious disagreements about what should be done and why.