Majority of young Americans distrust billionaire AI leaders

A poll of 1,088 Americans aged 18 to 34 conducted by CNBC and Generation Lab found that 45% expected AI to negatively affect their careers, compared with just 10% who believed it would help them, Forbes reported.

Distrust was widespread toward executives leading companies at the center of the AI boom.

Palantir CEO Alex Karp had the highest distrust level at 81%, followed by the company's chairman Peter Thiel at 79%, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei at 76% and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai at 74%.

Around 70% said they distrusted Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was viewed most favorably among the executives surveyed, although 65% still said they distrusted him, compared with 35% who trusted him.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Photo from AFP, Meta and Nvidia

The skepticism extended to the infrastructure powering AI. About 60% of respondents said construction of data centers should be slowed, while 15% wanted development accelerated.The findings come as AI is generating enormous fortunes for technology executives and startup founders.

Forbes estimated Musk's fortune at nearly $870 billion as of Aug. 13, making him the world's richest person. Zuckerberg ranked sixth with about $204.3 billion, while Huang was eighth with $194.5 billion. Altman was worth an estimated $3.3 billion.

Meanwhile, the AI boom has created a new generation of billionaires as investors pour money into startups.

The New York Times reported in December that founders of companies including Scale AI, Cursor, Perplexity, Mercor, Figure AI, Safe Superintelligence and Harvey had reached billionaire status on paper as valuations of their companies soared.

Many accumulated their fortunes remarkably quickly, with most of the new AI billionaires founding their companies within a few years of OpenAI's release of ChatGPT in late 2022.

The distrust toward AI leaders comes amid broader public unease about the technology and the power of major technology companies.

A Pew Research Center analysis published in March found that half of U.S. adults were more concerned than excited about the growing use of AI in daily life, compared with just 10% who were more excited than concerned.

A YouGov survey of around 1,200 U.S. adults commissioned by the Little Tech Association found that 71% believed large technology companies and their CEOs had too much power, while just 2% believed they had too little, Axios reported in July.

The skepticism toward AI also comes amid wider economic anxiety among young Americans. In the CNBC/Generation Lab poll, 45% described the U.S. economy as "bad," another 27% called it "very bad," and 6% said it "couldn't be worse.