A survey of 11,004 US adults: 62% believe AI will have a major impact on workers, 28% think AI will impact them, and 71% oppose AI use in final hiring decisions
Context & Ripple Effects
Pew's April 2023 survey of 11,004 US adults captures the starting point of an opinion arc the Center has tracked since: Americans overwhelmingly expect AI to transform work in general — 62% say major impact on workers — but only 28% expect it to touch them personally, and 71% oppose AI making final hiring calls.
The follow-on coverage shows how that gap between general and personal expectation has narrowed into concrete anxiety: by the October 2024 worker survey, 52% of US workers were worried about AI's workplace impact and 32% expected fewer job opportunities, and by August 2025, Reuters reported 71% concerned AI will put too many people out of work permanently. The 2023 hiring-opposition number now reads as the earliest signal of resistance to AI decision authority.
First-order effects
- Employers deploying AI in recruitment face clear public headwinds: with 71% opposed to AI in final decisions, any visible automation of the hire/no-hire call carries reputational cost even where candidates accept AI earlier in screening.
- The 34-point spread between 'AI affects workers' (62%) and 'AI affects me' (28%) gives companies and communicators a measurable optimism gap to manage — workers discount the risk to their own roles.
Second-order effects
- Hiring-technology vendors are pushed toward positioning AI as advisory rather than authoritative — human-in-the-loop framing becomes the product requirement that lets employers keep efficiency claims without triggering the majority's objection.
- The accumulating Pew numbers give policymakers and unions ready-made polling evidence for rules restricting automated employment decisions, shifting lobbying pressure onto HR-software firms.
Third-order effects
- If the trajectory holds — from 52% of workers worried in late 2024 to 71% fearing permanent job loss in 2025 — AI in labor markets moves from a perception problem to a governance one, with employment-decision AI likely to attract the same regulatory scrutiny as credit scoring or algorithmic pricing.
The trend: US public sentiment on AI has shifted from abstract concern about workers generally to specific, hardening opposition to AI exercising decision authority over jobs and hiring.