A majority of U.S. voters believe the Trump administration and Congress aren’t taking artificial intelligence risks seriously enough, and they want the government to write new regulations, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Wednesday.
The findings reveal a striking gap between public concern and official policy. Eighty-four percent of voters see AI as a threat to American workers—a higher share than those citing illegal immigration (60%), foreign competition (74%), or large corporations (73%) as employment threats. Yet the administration has made AI development and data-center construction priorities, calling them essential to U.S. competitiveness.
The six-day survey ended Monday. It found that 57% of registered voters said the Trump administration hadn’t taken AI risks seriously enough or at all. A third of self-identified Republicans shared that view. Fifty-four percent said the same about Congress. A bipartisan majority—80% of Democrats and 61% of Republicans—backed stricter government regulation of AI.
Who Bears the Risk
Cybersecurity expert Morgan Wright has spent years training federal, state and local law enforcement, including teams at the FBI and the National Security Agency. He warns that generative AI tools are making scams devastatingly effective. These systems can remove language barriers, write convincing phishing texts, and create realistic voice and video clones using just a few seconds of audio.
Deborah Del Mastro, a California mother, learned the hard way. Someone cloned her daughter’s voice in a kidnapping hoax. “It’s my daughter’s voice,” Del Mastro recalled. “And she’s having a panic attack.” Convinced her daughter faced immediate danger, she transferred more than $5,000 before realizing she’d been scammed.
“When you can fool a mother, that’s how good these things are getting,” Wright said. “What they do is use manipulation, influence and deceit. The more urgent I can make it sound, the more you’re going to lower your guard and take action.”
Adversarial states like China and Russia use AI globally for attacks, Wright noted, while cybercriminals most often target ordinary Americans, exploiting personal vulnerabilities for quick payouts. Scammers evolve faster than defenses can keep pace. “We hear about all the different models from xAI, Anthropic, OpenAI and Gemini. They change models constantly,” Wright said. “So, when the model changes, how effective is [detection software]? We don’t know because this stuff is moving so fast. What you see today will be drastically different tomorrow.”
Wright emphasized that skepticism—not sophisticated software—remains the best defense. “Let’s go back to around 1860, when Edgar Allan Poe wrote: ‘Believe nothing that you hear and only one half that you see,’” he told Fox News Digital. “That advice is as good now as it was 160 years ago.”
The Policy Gap
Public concern about AI risks reaches well beyond employment. Sixty-two percent of voters said AI could get out of control and threaten humanity’s future—roughly the same share as in a Reuters/Ipsos poll from August of last year. Yet the administration’s response focuses on competitive advantage rather than public protection.
A White House official said the Trump administration’s priority is to “ensure that there is a booming economy so that workers have many opportunities and experience limited volatility from any short-term disruptions.” The official pointed to Trump’s new task force, saying it’s responsible for ensuring “America continues to lead the world” in the technology.
Trump has repeatedly backed AI development and data-center construction, arguing they’re vital to U.S. competitiveness. He has said the U.S. technology industry could fall behind Chinese counterparts without these investments—an argument AI safety advocates call misguided.
Where Voters and Officials Diverge
Daniel Kokotajlo left OpenAI in 2024 because he believed the company wasn’t behaving responsibly. He offered a different assessment. “That’s an important concern but it’s not top of mind for most Americans, nor should it be,” he said of the competitive argument. The more pressing concern, he argued, is that AI could cost people their jobs or threaten human health and safety.
Voters reflected that priority. Fifty-six percent backed limits on data-center construction: 69% of Democrats, 55% of independents and 43% of Republicans. Fifty-seven percent said the U.S. government shouldn’t use AI to choose targets for military strikes, up from 49% in a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in August 2025.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll ran online nationwide and gathered responses from 4,506 U.S. adults, including 3,526 registered voters. Its margin of error was 2 percentage points.
Why This Matters:
The disconnect between voter sentiment and policy direction raises fundamental questions about democratic accountability. When 84% of Americans view AI as a threat to workers, 62% worry it could threaten humanity itself, and bipartisan majorities support regulation, the administration’s focus on development over protection signals whose interests shape technology policy. Workers facing job displacement, families targeted by AI-powered scams, and ordinary citizens concerned about military applications of AI aren’t abstract constituencies—they’re the voters the government is meant to represent. Without strong regulatory frameworks, ordinary Americans remain vulnerable to rapidly evolving scams while corporations and state actors access increasingly powerful tools. History shows that major technologies—from automobiles to pharmaceuticals—required public pressure and regulation to protect workers and consumers. The current trajectory suggests that pattern may not repeat for AI.