AAmerica’s teens believe addressing the potential risks of artificial intelligence should be a top priority for lawmakers, according to a new poll that provides the first in-depth look at young people’s concerns about the technology.
The poll, conducted by youth-led advocacy group the Center for Youth and AI and polling organization YouGov, and shared exclusively with TIME, reveals a level of concern that rivals long-standing issues like social inequality and climate change.
The survey of 1,017 U.S. teens ages 13 to 18, conducted in late July and early August, found that 80% of respondents believed it was “extremely” or “somewhat” important for lawmakers to address the risks of AI to grab. among health care access and affordability in terms of issues they identified as a top priority. That surpassed social inequality (78%) and climate change (77%).
Although the sample size is quite small, it provides insight into how young people think about technology, which is often embedded in their lives from an early age. “I think our generation has a unique perspective,” said Saheb Gulati, 17, who co-founded the Center for Youth and AI with 19-year-old Jason Hausenloy. “That is not despite our age, but because of it.” Because today’s teens have grown up with digital technology, Gulati says, they have been confronted with questions about its social impact more often than older generations.
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While there has been more research into how young people use AI, for example to help or cheat on schoolwork, Rachel Hanebutt, an assistant professor at Georgetown University’s Thrive Center who helped advise on the poll analysis, says: “Some of them may feel a little superficial and not as focused on what teens and young people think about AI and its role in their future, which I think is where this brings a lot of value.”
The findings show that nearly half of respondents use ChatGPT or similar tools several times a week, which echoes another recent poll that suggests teens have embraced AI at a faster rate than their parents. But being early adopters has not translated into “full optimism,” says Hausenloy.
Teenagers are at the heart of many debates about artificial intelligence, from the impact of social media algorithms to deep fake nudes. This week it emerged that a mother is suing Character.ai and Google after her son allegedly became obsessed with the chatbot before committing suicide. Yet “the ages 13 to 18 are not always represented in full political polls,” says Hanebutt. This research gives adults a better understanding of “what teens and young people think about AI and its role in their future,” rather than just how they use it, Hanebutt says. She points to the need for future polls that examine how teens expect lawmakers to take action on this issue.
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While the poll didn’t ask about specific policies, it does provide insight into the AI risks that concern the greatest number of teens, with immediate threats at the top of the list. AI-generated disinformation concerned the majority of respondents (59%), followed closely by deepfakes (58%). However, the poll shows that many young people are also concerned about the longer-term trajectory of the technology; 47% say they are concerned about the potential of advanced autonomous AI to escape human control. Nearly two-thirds say they are considering the implications of AI when planning their careers.
Hausenloy says the poll is just the first step in the Center for Youth and AI’s ambitions to ensure young people are “represented, prepared and protected” when it comes to AI.
The poll shows that despite concerns in other areas, young people are generally supportive of AI-generated creative works. More than half of respondents (57%) were in favor of AI-generated art, film and music, while only 26% were against it. Less than a third of teens were concerned about AI copyright violations.
On the issue of befriending AI, respondents were divided, with 46% saying AI companionship is acceptable, while 44% said it is unacceptable. On the other hand, most teens (68%) were against romantic relationships with AI, compared to just 24% who find it acceptable.
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“This is the first and most comprehensive look at youth attitudes toward AI that I have ever seen,” said Sneha Revanur, founder and president of Encode Justice, a youth-led, AI-focused civil society group, which helped when providing advice about the research. Revanur was the youngest participant at a White House AI roundtable in July 2023, and more recently the youngest to attend the 2024 World Economic Forum in Davos.
In the past, she says, Encode Justice spoke on behalf of their generation without hard numbers to back them up, but “we will attend future meetings with policymakers armed with this data, and armed with the fact that we actually have a There are quite a few young people thinking about these risks.”
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She points to California Senate Bill 1047 — which would have required AI companies to implement safeguards to protect the public from potential harm from their technology — as an instance where public concerns about the technology were overlooked. “In California, we just saw Governor Gavin Newsom veto a sweeping AI safety bill that was supported by a broad coalition, including our organization, Anthropic, Elon Musk, actors in Hollywood and labor unions,” says Revanur. “That was the first time we saw this fragmentation in the narrative that the public doesn’t care about AI policy. And I think this poll is really just one more crack in that story.”
