Americans rank job losses as their biggest fear about artificial intelligence, while cures for diseases like cancer top their hopes, according to an Anthropic survey of nearly 52,000 people.
The findings reveal a gap between what the public wants from AI and what it fears, with real layoffs data and political pressure over automation increasing across the United States.
Job loss outweighs all other AI concerns
Anthropic surveyed 51,993 Americans in late 2025 in its first public-record study. Job loss was ranked as the top fear by 64%, ranking first in every state.
Concern ranged from 71% in Iowa to 57% in Mississippi. It led among Democrats by 67% and Republicans by 62%.
“Americans with graduate degrees are about 10% more concerned about job losses than those with a high school education or less,” the survey found. “At the same time, people who use AI at work every day are significantly less worried about losing a job than people who don’t use AI at all: 54% versus 70%.”
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This was followed by cognitive reliance at 56%, then misinformation at 52%. Only 15% of Americans said they trust AI companies to guide technology. According to the results,
“This was the lowest number of any organization we tested, lower than the federal government (20%), state and local governments (19%), international bodies (20%), and significantly lower than independent experts (43%).”
AI layoffs and billionaire pushback
Fear is not abstract. BeInCrypto reported this AI led to 38,579 job losses in the United States in May, about 40% of the month’s total.
For 2026, employers linked 87,714 reductions to AI. This total already exceeds the 54,836 people attributed to technology during all of 2025.
The pressure has reached Washington. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders did just that He urged Congress to protect workers now.
Not everyone agrees. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos refuses He listed job losses, predicting that AI would create labor scarcity instead. Bezos raised this issue when his AI startup, Prometheus, raised $12 billion at a valuation of $41 billion.
“A lot of people who, for example, today have two-parent families, one of those people may choose not to be in the workforce, so they will become a single-parent family,” Bezos said.
Americans want healing and accountability
On the hopeful side, 48% placed treating diseases such as cancer or Alzheimer’s among the top three uses of artificial intelligence. Assistance to persons with disabilities came at 36%.
Support for censorship was high. 71% of respondents We want government involvement in artificial intelligence, Among them are 79% of Democrats and 68% of Republicans.
When asked how to keep AI development directed toward the benefit of humanity, 47% supported holding holding companies legally responsible for harm. Another 44% wanted to prioritize safety over growth.
Anthropic plans to replicate the Anthropic Public Record as AI adoption deepens. An early read shows that the public is eager for breakthroughs but skeptical of the companies that build them.
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