76% believe it is likely foreign actors will use AI to harm the U.S.
On Tuesday, Americans for Responsible Innovation (ARI) released new polling on voters’ attitudes towards AI policy and national security. The polling, which asks voters which issues they would like to see the Administration address regarding AI, finds that national security concerns top the list of voter priorities. Over three quarters of all voters believe it is either very or somewhat likely that foreign actors will use AI to harm the U.S.
The poll, conducted by Morning Consult from February 13 to 15, surveyed over 2,000 registered voters with a margin of error of ±2%. The full poll is available here.
“Advanced AI is a source of strength for the U.S., but in the wrong hands, it can also be one of our biggest vulnerabilities,” said ARI Senior VP of Government Affairs Doug Calidas. “So far the Trump Administration has taken seriously the threat of adversaries smuggling, pirating, and misusing high-end chips and advanced AI model weights. But there’s more work, especially that Congress can do, to protect against bio, chemical, and other AI national security risks. Across the board, we need to update national security policy for the AI era.”
Last week, Americans for Responsible Innovation held a virtual panel, AI Model Piracy: The Emerging Threat of Distillation & Model Weight Theft, with experts from across civil society, think tanks, and academia. The expert panel discussed AI model weight theft, distillation, and what the government and private sector can do to prevent adversaries from exploiting closed US AI models to build their own frontier AI. Watch the full panel here.
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Americans for Responsible Innovation (ARI) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to policy advocacy in the public interest, focused on emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI). Learn more at ARI.us.