78 percent say AI-written news articles would be a bad thing: survey

A new poll found that while most Americans expect there will be a time when entire news articles will be written by artificial intelligence (AI), a majority said that would be a bad thing.

The survey — conducted by the Monmouth University Polling Institute — showed that 72 percent of Americans believe that AI will be used to write entire news articles. The poll also found that 78 percent said using AI software to write articles would be a bad thing, and 65 percent said students could potentially use programs such as ChatGPT to cheat on school assignments.

More than 90 percent of Americans said that they are aware of AI, and of that number, 35 percent reported hearing about recent developments in AI technology, according to the poll. Around 60 percent also said they have heard of ChatGPT — an online AI program that can write responses to typed-in prompts.

“AI has started to permeate every facet of life. Most Americans are skeptical that this is a good thing, even though many of them use some form of artificial intelligence on a regular basis already,” Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute, said in a statement.

Only 9 percent of Americans believed that AI would do more good than harm to society, as 41 percent said it would do more harm and 46 percent said it would do equal levels of good and harm. More than 70 percent of Americans reported that machines with the ability to think for themselves would hurt the economy, and 56 percent said it would hurt people’s quality of life, the poll found.

The research also found that more Americans — around 55 percent — are now worried about AI one day threatening human existence than in 2015, when only 44 percent were worried.

Most Americans reported that some AI applications, such as performing risky jobs and facial recognition technology, were good ideas. Most Americans said using the technology for other applications, including nuclear plant operations, self-driving delivery trucks, military drones and robotic nurses, was a bad idea.

Some lawmakers, including Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), have called on the government to regulate artificial intelligence. Lieu proposed in a New York Times op-ed last month that to regulate AI, there needs to be a separate federal agency to monitor it — and the poll found that 55 percent of Americans support a proposal like that.

The poll surveyed 805 American adults from Jan. 26 to Jan. 30. The results have a margin of error of 5.7 percentage points.