r/accelerate • u/luchadore_lunchables Feeling the AGI • 12d ago
News Reuters: 71% of people are concerned AI will replace their job
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/americans-fear-ai-permanently-displacing-workers-reutersipsos-poll-finds-2025-08-19/Disconcerting numbers.
- 71% concerned AI will take job
- 66% concerned AI will replace relationships
- 61% concerned about AI increasing electricity consumption
Questions for the Community:
Do these percentages line up with what you’re hearing IRL?
Which fear (job loss, social isolation, or energy-drains) will move the political needle fastest and shape regulation?
If public sentiment turns sharply negative, how does that affect accelerate deployment timelines?
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u/Somnambu 12d ago
The other 29% haven't thought about it hard enough.
This isn't like the past industrial revolutions. We aren't building one tool to "automate" one job, which still requires a human in the loop, like the printing press, cotton gin, sewing machine, etc.
This is a tool capable of doing anything a human can do, and even things we can't, once it becomes embodied.
There isn't a single job in the world that a human could do better than a sufficiently advanced humanoid robot. Everything is up for grabs this time.
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u/VashonVashon 12d ago
“Sufficiently” is one of my favorite words you use. It essentially means “it will happen when it’s good enough”, and the CRAZY thing about computer science is once you learn it, you realize that it’s this “thing” that just👏keeps👏getting👏better👏foooooooo-ever👏
So yeah…how many years? Who knows! But I’m putting my money on it eventually being “sufficient”….
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u/breathing00 Acceleration Advocate 12d ago
The other 29% haven't thought about it hard enough.
I am probably part of something like 2-5% of this, not 29, but I simply don't consider losing a job to AI a bad perspective, or to be more precise I consider it a risk worth taking. I'd gladly take the high-variance play over working my boring 9-5 job for the rest of my life.
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u/rileyoneill 12d ago
Over what timeline though? I think the productivity will grow so much that people will still be employed sometimes.
Like look at housing. Right now. Lets say you have a bare lot. When will AI be able to survey the property, design a house to your liking, do all the engineering, all the fabrication, and then robots show up to the job site, and build everything to the standards that the best humans can do with the absolute minimum human labor input. Like so good that the casual observer seeing the finished product would just assume it was some fancy architect design artisan built multi million dollar build.
We are not there yet with AI and Automation. How much would all this cost? Would it cost 10% less than today's pricing allows? Right now its typical that the design, engineering, permitting, and construction cost about 10 times as much as the material cost for building a home. Housing is something we have to do. We need places to live. Most of our homes are old and shitty and need to be replaced with modern homes for the 21st century.
The economic productivity could scale up by some crazy factor. Like 10x the productivity would be modest.
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u/cafesamp 12d ago
Technically the timeline doesn’t matter since that’s not what the comment you’re replying to is about. The argument is that a robot that possesses human or superhuman intelligence and also has the mechanical means to interact with the physical world as we do can fully replace us in a practical sense.
Does demand for housing outweigh the supply of construction/associated work labor? Is making building housing more efficient going to drive up the demand for labor, or reduce it since more of it will be automated?
Just some things to think about. We’re not there right now, but we’re also talking in hypotheticals.
Also, 3D printed housing is on the rise.
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u/breathing00 Acceleration Advocate 12d ago
"Social isolation" being a concern about AI is a really dumb and ignorant thing, probably said by people that have no idea how social isolation feels or happens. Most people that look for relationships with AI are doing it because they lack friends / relationships / support from others, and AI is something that can at least help them feel a little better. It's not like there is an evil chatbot hunting happy people, trying to replace their friends.
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u/ponieslovekittens 12d ago edited 12d ago
Do these percentages line up with what you’re hearing IRL?
Not at all.
Of the three, based on my own social circle, concerns about job losses is the only thing that's on the average person's radar. I don't think I've ever even had a conversation in real life with anybody about AI consuming electricity. Ai relationships do get talked about, but there's more enthusiasm for it than concern about it.
Job losses, yes, absolutely gets talked about. But it's hard to say how people really feel about it because it kind of seems to depend on their mood. The same guy might be enthusiastic about it when talking about using AI to reduce costs for his business, but then become concerned when thinking about his daughter's job prospects after college. There's uncertainty and mixed feelings here. People change their mind. Overall though, I think most people I know are either in the "my job is safe because I'm special" or "yeah it's going to happen shrug hopefully we get Star Trek rather than Cyberpunk" camps.
Overall if I had to guess:
Concern about job losses: It's probably 50% who are "aware" of it...but maybe 20-30% who are "concerned?"
Concern about relationships: this is hard to say, because again, I see more enthusiasm for it than concern. And even the people who admit that "it might be unhealthy for society" tend to be personally interested, or indifferent. There's far more awareness of the possibility of AI girlfriends phenomenon happening than the idea of it truly replacing relationships for people.
Concern about electricity: nobody
Which fear (job loss, social isolation, or energy-drains) will move the political needle fastest and shape regulation?
Based on my sample group, job losses.
If public sentiment turns sharply negative, how does that affect accelerate deployment timelines?
Too open a question. It would depend on a lot on how/why it turned negative.
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u/ohHesRightAgain Singularity by 2035 12d ago
This reeks of manipulation. The numbers don't match what I see irl at all. Barely anyone I know even seriously cares atm. It's on the level of global warming - people might pretend to care if asked, but without putting any effort into being convincing.
They likely either conducted it online, in a carefully selected space, or came up with some cleverly worded yes or no questions that made people opt into their agenda by denying something that made less sense.
People really should be much more concerned about these things, but they just aren't.
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u/The_Hell_Breaker Techno-Optimist 12d ago
I am much more shocked that 66% of people's relationships are so fragile that AI can replace it.
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u/Shloomth Tech Philosopher 11d ago
What was the percentage of functionally illiterate people in the US again?
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u/carnoworky 12d ago
Job loss. In the current world, everyone who isn't some level of wealthy or qualifies for some kind of disability-based safety net needs a job to get by. Losing your source of income has an immediate impact for most people.
I don't think it changes significantly outside of outright bans on training large models globally. I don't see this as very likely, because it's been pushed as US vs. China and it doesn't really matter what anyone else does with either still racing each other.