Fewer think AI is coming for white collar jobs

The Ipsos Consumer Tracker asks Americans questions about culture, the economy and the forces that shape our lives. Here's one thing we learned this week.

Why we asked: AI and all things GPT continue to be a source of wonder and worry for businesses and consumers alike. So we continue probing new sentiment and trending previous questions. This one is trended from this time last year.

What we found: We asked about a number of topics and whether people think AI will lead to them improving or getting worse. Few (23%), for instance, think AI will lead to improvement in terms of the spread of misinformation online, which is flat from last year. Most (71%) think it will lead to earlier detection of medical conditions. Perhaps counterintuitively, more now think AI will lead to an improvement in energy use, despite more and more coverage of how energy-demanding it is to run AI systems (hence Microsoft wanting to reopen the nuclear plant at Three Mile Island to power AI datacenters.) And most interesting of all, there is a big jump in people thinking that white collar (+13 percentage points), blue collar (+4) and your own (+6) job prospects will get better. Perhaps some of our fears of displacement are dissipating at least in some fields. However, it’s worth remembering that some of the most notable labor strikes recently, including the current dockworkers strike on the East Coast, have job security from automation as central negotiating points.

More insights from this wave of the Ipsos Consumer Tracker:

The shifting political landscape of what we trust

One in ten think the Supreme Court will decide the Presidential election

Many report economic anxiety and spending shifts during election season

People with higher incomes have more expectation of generational wealth

The Ipsos Care-o-Meter: What does America know about vs. what does America care about?