• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, Yesterday

American readers are pessimistic about the impact of AI on news—probably with good reason. 

Only 10% feel AI will have a positive effect, and a mere 2% feel strongly that it will, according to a report by Pew.

Fifty percent believe AI will have a negative impact, 26% feel very much so. Another 23% think it will be a mixture of both. 

And, 59% believe AI will lead to fewer journalistic jobs over the next 20 years. Only 5% say it will result in more jobs. 

How good would AI be at writing news stories? Of the readers surveyed, 19% say it will do a better job, 41% worse and 20% about the same. The remaining 20% are not sure. 

One caveat is that this AI snippet is based on a broader survey conducted by Pew last summer that it is only now publicizing. Attitudes may have changed in one direction or the other. 

That said, the report shows that 66% of Americans are extremely or very concerned about people getting inaccurate information from AI, and 26% are somewhat so. Only 7% do not appear worried.

Attitudes depend on political orientation and education. Of the Republicans polled, 21% say AI would do a better job of writing a news story than journalists, compared to 18% of Democrats polled. 

In addition, 56% of consumers with a college degree and 54% with some college education feel AI will have a negative impact on news, versus 44% with less education.