AI 101 for Policy People
Artificial Intelligence (and discourse about it) is becoming harder to escape for many Americans and American sentiment around AI appears to be evolving just as quickly as the models themselves. While more than half of Americans are using AI tools, a similar number expressed caution about advances in the technology. From December 2024 to March 2025, more Americans reported feeling skeptical, overwhelmed, scared, concerned, cautious, and curious and fewer reported feeling impressed, hopeful, or excited. Over this same period, Americans increasingly expressed concern that AI will have negative consequences on society as a whole (from 34% to 40%) and on their own lives (from 22% to 28%).
Americans seem torn on how to feel about the people behind the models, with sizeable majorities of Americans agreeing that AI companies are encouraging the use of AI to give themselves more power (78%), replace human workers (78%), make scientific and medical advancements (71%), and make tasks easier for people (68%). This may be due in part to decreasing transparency from these companies. Americans increasingly believe that AI should be much more regulated but just 31% trust the U.S. government to regulate AI responsibly, the lowest of 30 countries surveyed. In all 50 U.S. states, more Americans were concerned about AI regulation not going far enough than AI regulation going too far.
Given all this, it's more important than ever that we understand these tools, how they work, and how they're being used. Consider this series AI 101 for policy people.
To start, check out our overview on what these tools are and how they work.
Next, explore the biases these models have inherited.
Once you understand how these tools work, you're ready to dive into our series on AI in context:
AI in Employment
Learn about AI in hiring and employment: AI resume generation, AI resume and candidate review, AI job interviews, and competence penalties faced by those who use AI at work.
AI in Healthcare
In the fractured and complex American healthcare system, companies are rushing to fill unmet healthcare needs with a variety of AI tools. In this blog we explore the good, the bad, and the ugly of AI in healthcare.
AI in Policing
AI tools are giving law enforcement officers unprecedented power. When these tools get it wrong, the consequences are serious. In this blog, we discuss the use of AI in policing and law enforcement.