New Axios-CivicScience index finds Americans expect an AI boom without the jobs

The first monthly AI Sentiment Index shows optimism about growth paired with deep skepticism about employment Americans think artificial intelligence will make the economy bigger. They just don’t think it will make room for them in it. That split is the headline finding from the first release of the Axios-CivicScience AI Sentiment Index, published Friday. It puts numbers behind a criticism that has trailed the AI boom for a while: that it looks like a growth story without a hiring story. What the new index measures The index is a monthly tracker built by Axios and polling firm CivicScience. It scores American opinion across six separate measures. Four of them cover AI’s effects on quality of life, society, jobs and economic growth. The other two gauge support for continued AI development and for building new data centers. Respondents broadly expect the technology to lift economic growth. They are far less convinced it will create jobs along the way. Axios framed the gap as a possible explanation for something that has puzzled the industry. AI is widely described as transformative, yet public sentiment toward it keeps running negative. The worry shows up in other CivicScience data T...