College-educated workers have a “fear of becoming obsolete”

The Future. The rise of AI is generating a lot of anxiety among college-educated workers, with a new survey finding more and more people are starting to believe they could one day be replaced by the tech… which could make regulating it one of the big topics of the upcoming election cycle.

Struck by FOBO
Gallup found 22% of American workers now fear AI could replace them — up from 15% in 2021.

• Breaking it down, Gallup says AI fears among workers without college degrees remained steady at just over 20%, while that of college-educated workers more than doubled from 8% to 20%.
• That makes sense when McKinsey estimates up to 70% of worker hours are spent doing things that chatbots could theoretically do right now.
• And according to Revelio Labs, a majority of the jobs that AI could displace are held by women.

While this may not seem like totally dire thinking — less than 25% of US workers are actually worried about being replaced by robots — both Pew and Gallup found that even though most workers weren’t concerned about being personally displaced, a vast majority were worried that others would be replaced.

In other words, workers’ AI fears look a little something like this.