A majority of Americans under 30 now say artificial intelligence worries them more than it excites them, according to a Pew Research Center survey released Aug. 18.
This is the first time this age group has crossed that threshold since Pew began tracking AI sentiment in 2021.
Young adults ages 18 to 29 “stand out” in their unease, researchers Colleen McClain and Eugenie Park wrote, noting that this generation increasingly believes AI could be “bad for society — and for them,” making genuine connection and creativity harder to come by.
That’s a sharp turn for a generation once assumed to be AI’s biggest fans. Pew surveyed 3,488 US adults between June 22 and 28 and found that 55% of adults under 30 are now more concerned than excited about AI’s growing role in daily life, up from 31% in 2021. Only 11% said they’re more excited than concerned, down from 25% five years ago.
The shift shows up most clearly in how young people see their own futures. Seventy-three percent of adults under 30 now believe AI will lead to fewer jobs over the next 20 years, up from 61% just two years ago, according to Pew. Across all age groups, just 5% of Americans think AI will create more jobs than it destroys.
RELEVANT magazine called this a paradox worth sitting with: Gen Z uses chatbots more fluently than anyone else yet remains evenly split on whether the tools are actually giving them anything back. Many young adults report AI hinders their creativity about as often as it helps it, the outlet noted, even as they lean on it daily for schoolwork, writing and conversation.
Related: Here’s What ChatGPT Has to Say About Christianity
Movieguide® has watched this tension play out before. In a piece on whether AI should be used as a spiritual growth tool, Dr. Drew Dickens, who studies AI’s evolution from novelty to spiritual tool, raised a question worth asking here too.
“Christians need to start asking better questions when they use AI for spiritual input,” Dr. Dickens said. “Not just, ‘Is the answer right?’ but, ‘Who built this model, what’s influencing it, and what biases are shaping the output?'”
That same article pointed out something AI still can’t fake, no matter how convincing it gets: “Can a computer show empathy? It can imitate empathy…does it care about my eternal life? No,” Dr. Dickens said.
Pew’s numbers suggest a lot of young people have already arrived at a version of that conclusion on their own, even outside a spiritual context. Fifty-two percent of all Americans now say they’re more concerned than excited about AI, up from 37% in 2021, meaning the generational gap that once defined this debate is closing fast.
For Christian parents and families, that’s worth paying attention to. Gen Z didn’t sour on AI because someone lectured them about it. They sounded the alarm themselves, after living with the technology longer and more closely than any other generation.
That’s a useful reminder that discernment isn’t something Christians need to import into conversations about AI. It’s something plenty of young people are already practicing, whether or not they’d put it in those words. The tools that promise connection and creativity are, by a lot of young users’ own account, sometimes taking as much as they give.
Movieguide® will keep tracking how artificial intelligence reshapes entertainment, storytelling and the younger generation’s relationship with both.
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