{"slug": "study-suggests-people-trust-ai-more-that-government-and-social-media", "title": "Study Suggests People Trust AI More That Government And Social Media", "summary": "A study by the Collective Intelligence Project, surveying over 6,000 people across 70 countries, found that 58% trust AI chatbots more than their elected representatives, and 37% believe AI could make better decisions on their behalf than government representatives. The report also found that two-thirds use AI for emotional support monthly, and three-quarters are expected to use AI at work while believing it will make good jobs harder to find. Jeff Sebo, director of the Center for Mind, Ethics, and Policy at New York University, commented that chatbots are always available and seem neutral, while politicians often appear distant and self-interested.", "body_md": "# Study Suggests People Trust AI More That Government And Social Media\n\n*Support CleanTechnica's work through*[a Substack subscription](https://cleantechnica.substack.com/subscribe),[on Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/cleantechnica), or[on Stripe](https://cleantechnica.fundjournalism.org/contribute/). Help us produce all of the[high-quality, original content we publish week after week](https://cleantechnica.com/2026/07/14/10/)despite the challenges of content-scraping AI, antisocial media, inflation, and other hurdles.The [Collective Intelligence Project](https://www.cip.org/) bills itself as an organization that is steering transformative AI towards better outcomes for everyone. In its latest study, which involved a survey of people in 70 countries, it reports “the decisions shaping AI are made by a small number of people but the consequences reach everyone.” In the executive summary, the group said: “Through seven rounds of deliberation with more than 6,000 people across 70 countries, we have built recurring infrastructure to learn how the world actually lives with AI — what people use it for, whether they trust it, and how it is changing their daily lives.\n\n“Every other month, we ask a representative sample of the globe a series of topical questions, using an AI-enabled deliberative interface that surfaces not just what people think, but why. These signals and trends reveal fast-moving structural shifts. 58 percent of people trust AI chatbots more than their elected representatives. Two thirds use AI for emotional support monthly. Three quarters are expected to use AI at work while believing it will make good jobs harder to find. AI reinforces beliefs more powerfully than social media, and people trust the tools while distrusting the companies that build them.”\n\n### Trust In AI\n\nThe report then digs deeper into its findings, leading to this rather startling conclusion: “58 percent of people trust AI chatbots more than elected representatives. AI ranks above faith leaders, corporations, and civil servants. Only family doctors and public research institutions rank higher. When asked directly, 37 percent agreed that AI could make better decisions on their behalf than their government representatives.”\n\nAccording to * Bloomberg,* almost half of those surveyed prefer AI-assisted decision support for community choices, meaning that they would “prefer an AI model to help them make decisions relating to local services such as taxes, permits or licenses.” Really? People would rather let some AI agent set tax policy, grant liquor licenses, and issue building permits? Houston, we have a problem.\n\nJeff Sebo, director of the Center for Mind, Ethics, and Policy at New York University, told *Bloomberg* that the survey results show how comfortable people have become with AI technology. “Chatbots are always available, they focus entirely on one user, and they patiently answer every question while adopting an engaging persona. They can also seem neutral and objective, even if their answers are expressing a perspective that may be contested. On the other hand, politicians often appear distant, unresponsive and self-interested,” Sebo said.\n\nTrust in government has been low for decades in the US, starting with Ronald Reagan’s viciously satirical “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” According to the [Pew Research Center](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/12/04/public-trust-in-government-1958-2025/), only 17 percent of Americans trust the government “to do what is right.” The numbers are higher among people in many other Western countries. For example, among people living in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, about 40 percent said they had high trust in government.\n\nCIP says its study shows public [trust in AI](https://cleantechnica.com/2026/02/14/ai-artificial-intelligence-or-always-incorrect/) is high for advisory and informational functions, but lower when autonomy is involved. “Potential drivers of this trend may include declining public trust in governments and elected officials, together with AI’s continuous availability, its ability to explain complex issues using accessible language, provide context-relevant information, and the perception that it is more impartial than political or corporate actors,” said Hasan Aljabbouli, clinical associate professor of computer science at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University. “This places increasing responsibility on AI providers to ensure that the information they deliver is accurate, balanced, transparent, and accountable, given its potential influence on voter perceptions and electoral outcomes,” he said.\n\n### Limitations\n\nThe study demonstrates that people are strongly against allowing AI to decide on their behalf. So while people might trust the information that chatbots spit out, only 3.7 percent of people are willing to let it make the actual choice.\n\nWhat’s important to realize here is that AI has the potential to deeply affect a person’s thoughts and opinions. “AI could expand access to information, but it could also amplify misinformation. We already struggle to detect bias in social media algorithms, and since chatbot conversations are private and personalized, any bias they introduce in advance of an election might be even harder for researchers, politicians and other people to detect and address,” Sebo said.\n\nHod Lipson, a professor of mechanical engineering at Columbia University, told *Bloomberg* that decisions like who to vote for are complicated because most of the time people already have their minds made up, and don’t need AI-assisted support to make their decision.\n\nIn the CPI study, respondents were asked who would weigh their interests more fairly on a decision affecting daily life, an AI system, or a person. Almost 40 percent said they would trust an AI agent more, while about 31 percent they would prefer to rely on the advice of an actual person. It also found that more than 80 percent of respondents notice AI in their daily life, and approximately 60 percent choose to use an AI system in their personal life on a daily basis. The survey’s numbers are in line with what experts are seeing. “In fact, I think these numbers are going to grow,” Lipson added.\n\n### A Sudden Rise In Interest\n\nIn some respects, the [introduction of AI](https://cleantechnica.com/2026/04/28/what-do-steve-bannon-bernie-sanders-have-in-common-opposition-to-artificial-intelligence/) into our daily lives is like the advent of the iPhone a generation ago. Suddenly a new technology swept up hundreds of millions of people in a new “must have” craze for something they never knew they needed. Once again, we have a new technology emerging that people trust more than almost any other source, which suggests people are willing to embrace new developments in the digital world, even though they have only the fuzziest idea of how they work.\n\nWe see similar behavior when it comes to automated driving systems. Despite abundant warnings about the need to be actively engaged in the driving process, many drivers have no qualms about turning over control of a 5,000 lb rolling sledgehammer to a machine. Few seem to realize the potential for harm and abuse that lurks just beneath the surface.\n\nThese [AI models](https://cleantechnica.com/2026/07/31/the-big-problem-for-ai-companies-they-dont-have-a-monopoly/) do not spring full blown from the brow of some cosmic actor dedicated to the good of humanity. They are created under the direction of tech moguls with world views that tend more toward the [domination of humans](https://jgill5862.substack.com/p/property-rights-vs-commons-in-american) than promoting the common good. And yet, people find them comforting, because they appear to listen and never put you on hold. Who would have thought we would willingly sell our humanity so cheaply?\n\n*Sign up for*\n\n[CleanTechnica's Weekly Substack for Zach and Scott's in-depth analyses and high level summaries](https://cleantechnica.substack.com/subscribe), sign up for[our daily newsletter](https://mailchi.mp/cleantechnica/daily-newsletter), and[follow us on Google News](https://news.google.com/publications/CAAqLQgKIidDQklTRndnTWFoTUtFV05zWldGdWRHVmphRzVwWTJFdVkyOXRLQUFQAQ)!*Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? 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See our policy*\n\n[here](https://cleantechnica.com/cleantechnica-editorial-ethics/).[CleanTechnica's Comment Policy](https://cleantechnica.com/cleantechnica-comment-policy/)", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/study-suggests-people-trust-ai-more-that-government-and-social-media", "canonical_source": "https://cleantechnica.com/2026/08/05/study-suggests-people-trust-ai-more-that-government-and-social-media/", "published_at": "2026-08-05 16:56:44+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-08-05 17:48:45.303023+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-policy", "ai-ethics"], "entities": ["Collective Intelligence Project", "Bloomberg", "Jeff Sebo", "New York University", "Pew Research Center", "Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/study-suggests-people-trust-ai-more-that-government-and-social-media", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/study-suggests-people-trust-ai-more-that-government-and-social-media.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/study-suggests-people-trust-ai-more-that-government-and-social-media.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/study-suggests-people-trust-ai-more-that-government-and-social-media.jsonld"}}