AI anxiety is sweeping the globe — and cutting across party lines

illuminem summarises for you the essential news of the day, reviewed by our editorial team. Read the full piece on POLITICO or enjoy below:

🗞️ Driving the news: A new POLITICO Poll finds widespread concern about artificial intelligence across the US, Canada, the UK, France, Spain and Germany, with roughly half of respondents in each country favouring a pause in further AI development to reduce risks
• More than half in every country surveyed also said there is at least a moderate risk that AI could “destroy humanity.”

🔭 The context: The survey comes as governments debate how to regulate increasingly capable AI systems, following warnings from some technology leaders and recent incidents involving AI models behaving unexpectedly during testing
• Concern generally cuts across political lines in Europe and Canada, while the US shows somewhat stronger partisan differences

🌍 Why it matters for the planet: AI expansion is driving demand for electricity, data centres, water and computing infrastructure, adding an environmental dimension to the debate over how quickly the technology should scale
• The climate impact will depend partly on whether this additional demand is met with low-carbon energy and greater resource efficiency

⏭️ What’s next: Governments face a policy trade-off between accelerating AI development and addressing public concerns over safety and social impacts
• The EU is considering how to support frontier AI while maintaining its regulatory approach, while national governments in North America are pursuing different levels of oversight

💬 One quote: “For now, fear is outrunning experience. But experience will catch up.” — Neil Chilson, Abundance Institute

📈 One stat: 51% of UK respondents supported pausing further AI development, the highest among the six countries surveyed

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