Older generations trail the nation on AI know-how: Poll

Artificial intelligence has become wildly popular for many Americans, but people over the age of 45 are trailing those younger than them on AI familiarity, a Fox News poll shows. 

Fifty-eight percent of registered voters over the age of 45 who were surveyed for the poll say they are not familiar with AI technology such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Only 41% of registered voters over 45 reported they are familiar with the technology.

The figures stand in stark contrast to younger Americans, with a whopping 65% of registered voters under the age of 45 reporting they are familiar with AI tech, such as ChatGPT. Only 35% of that group reported that they are not familiar AI.

The Fox News poll was conducted April 21-24 under the direction of Beacon Research and Shaw & Company Research among 1,004 registered voters nationwide. The voters were randomly selected and spoke with live interviewers on both landlines and cellphones. The poll has a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

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OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT in November was a game-changer for artificial intelligence, becoming the fastest-growing user base with 100 million monthly active users in January. People across the world rushed to use the chatbot, which ​​simulates human-like conversations based on prompts it is given.

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The poll found that familiarity with AI technology like ChatGPT has a gender divide. Sixty percent of men reported being familiar with the technology, compared to 42% of women. Only 40% of male registered voters said they were unfamiliar with the technology, compared to 57% of women. 

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Voters with college degrees were more likely to be familiar with AI tech at 57%, compared to 46% of voters with no college degree reporting the same.

Voters across the board, by an 8-point margin, reported they believe AI is bad for society instead of good. Voters who were familiar with AI tech, however, were more likely to report artificial intelligence is good for society, at 46%.

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Seventy-six percent of voters polled, including those familiar and unfamiliar with AI, reported that the government should regulate artificial intelligence, but 59% of the voters said they have no confidence or not much confidence the government can properly regulate it.

“Americans are unsure what to think of our new robot overlords,” Daron Shaw, a Republican who conducted the Fox News poll with Democrat Chris Anderson, said. “They’re skeptical elected leaders are up to the task of placing appropriate limits on this new tech, which probably says something about opinion on the tech and opinion on our leaders.”