Russell Wald
and Sha Sajadieh
, The Washington Post; Americans are down on AI. These two caricatures are to blame."America is all-in on artificial intelligence. Americans are not.
That is clear enough from domestic polling alone. But the 2026 AI Index, released this month by Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered AI, puts this skepticism into a global context.
While the United States and China are nearly matched in their aggressive investment and economic stakes, they are worlds apart in public sentiment. About 84 percent of respondents in China say they are excited about AI, versus just 38 percent in the U.S., a gap with profound implications for how each country builds, adopts and governs the technology.
Public opinion does not merely reflect the AI debate. It decides whether democratic societies can govern the technology wisely, adopt it productively and distinguish between real risk and manufactured panic.
The U.S. now stands out with its distrust. Americans reported the lowest trust in their government to regulate AI responsibly of any country surveyed: just 31 percent. The global average was 54 percent. In Singapore, that number was 81 percent."
