Show HN: We polled 2,122 Americans on AI and regulation, and built a visualizer

[appleslicemusic]

We are researchers from Johns Hopkins University who wanted to measure American attitudes toward specific AI regulations. So we ran a poll, with SurveyUSA as our partner, to collect the data from a nationally representative sample, and we built a data-explorer to share it. We included questions about where people trust or do not trust AI, and how they expect AI to alter power, inequality, and the meaningfulness of work. There is also a quiz to try, if (a) you want to locate your own AI attitudes relative to the population, or (b) if you're just one of those people who love taking quizzes.

The data explorer on the site lets you break down the results by age, political identity, and other demographics. And the data and the questionnaire are downloadable, so you can break down the results any way you prefer. Happy to say more about the methods and motivation.

[choney]

I helped design and analyze the poll.

Like in most prior polling, only about 1/3 of Americans had positive sentiment toward AI (and 1/3 were negative and 1/3 mixed). But people who use AI daily are much more positive than the broader population. Which I think means that the HN crowd is more positive than most of the USA about AI?

[paytonjjones]

I care A LOT about AI regulation, but the regulations questions are not at all the type of regulations I care about.

My concern is that we will eventually build intelligence that surpasses humans in all ways, which has a very high risk of killing us, replacing us, or at the very most optimistic still requiring civilization-level overhaul. I want regulations to slow and/or prevent that.

I couldn't care less about having a "right" to a human doctor. Actually I find the notion a bit ridiculous. In the pre-AI world most people across the world don't have easy access to a human doctor.

[choney]

Are there specific kinds of regulations that you have in mind for slowing AI development? We would be interested to add those in future iterations of the poll.