{"id":5350,"date":"2026-07-20T13:37:49","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T13:37:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=5350"},"modified":"2026-07-20T13:37:49","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T13:37:49","slug":"mass-residents-are-largely-using-ai-but-have-more-concerns-than-excitement-about-it-poll-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=5350","title":{"rendered":"Mass. residents are largely using AI, but have more concerns than excitement about it, poll shows"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Two-thirds of Massachusetts voters are more concerned about potential harm at the hands of artificial intelligence than they are excited about its innovative possibilities, according to a poll released Monday.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The poll by MassInc Polling Group and sponsored by Anthropic, a top AI company, found differences between demographics \u2014 Republicans and people from higher-income households signaled they were least concerned, but even these groups said they were more concerned than excited about AI. <\/span><\/p>\n

The consistency of feelings about AI across demographics is interesting because \u201cthat\u2019s not always true in a poll,\u201d said Steve Koczela, president of MassINC.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Even as people are worried about AI causing harm, they\u2019re still using the technology \u2014 61 percent of respondents reported using AI tools like Claude, ChatGPT, Google Gemini, or Copilot at least monthly. As AI is increasingly more ingrained into every part of society, the poll highlights that residents want the government to take the initiative to put in secure guardrails.<\/span><\/p>\n

Harvard PhD student Nigel Hunter, who studies neuroscience, <\/b>often uses ChatGPT and DeepSeek for coding in classwork but tries to limit his usage outside of school. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI would prefer if [AI] slowed down,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The poll shows about 65 percent of voters are worried about job loss, the risk of misinformation, and environmental dangers at the hands of AI. <\/span><\/p>\n

AI advancements are also drawing fierce resident opposition over their environmental impacts.Lowell residents have mounted protests over a data center\u2019s impacts on the city\u2019s skyline, and in Western Massachusetts, residents have concerns about an upcoming center\u2019s water usage. <\/span><\/p>\n

Without regulation, 82 percent of people said it was very or somewhat likely that AI tools would create serious risks, such as enabling chemical, biological, or nuclear harms or large-scale cyberattacks, according to the poll results. <\/span><\/p>\n

Anthropic told the Globe this kind of study was needed after the company backed the state Legislature\u2019s pending proposal in June on a new set of protocols that would force major AI companies to monitor and control any risk of harmful waste or uses of their programs. <\/span><\/p>\n

According to the poll, respondents support a long list of regulatory steps, including: reporting urgent (and potentially fatal) problems within 24 hours; annually updating their safety measures; and paying up to $1 million for each safety violation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Senator Barry Finegold, an Andover Democrat, has been helping lead the efforts around state policy for safer AI. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve developed a transparency framework to ensure that catastrophic risk never happens,\u201d <\/i>he said to the Globe. <\/span><\/p>\n

Policymakers were forced to respond to to social media\u2019s consequences after the tech became prominent. With AI, he said, the state\u2019s goal is to get ahead of the curve and protect people from harm on the front end.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cWe have learned from what California and New York have done,\u201d Finegold said. \u201cWe can have both a robust economy and common-sense guardrails.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s what voters who were polled said they were looking for. Nearly 80 percent said they want the state to be among the most secure states in AI regulation and nearly 70 percent said they don\u2019t want to wait on the federal government for safety rules.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s interesting because in Massachusetts, people are using it,\u201d Koczela said. \u201cIt\u2019s not that they\u2019re avoiding it, they just want to be sure there are rules that these companies are required to follow.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

For Hunter, the threat to the environment from data centers and AI\u2019s potential to cause widespread job loss outweigh the technological innovation. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the tech companies behind these advancements don\u2019t have the little guys\u2019 best interest at heart,\u201d Hunter said. <\/span><\/p>\n

Hunter said Harvard has struggledto limit students from submitting AI–<\/b>generated work for class.<\/span><\/p>\n

Others may rely too much on AI and its constant iterations to want the companies to slow down.<\/span><\/p>\n

Stanley Rameau, who teaches at Boston University and is also CEO of financial therapy company Renavest, said AI has helped make his life easier. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis piece of technology is probably moving faster than any that we\u2019ve seen,\u201d he said. <\/span><\/p>\n

Rameau said he pushes students to use AI in their studiesto get them acquainted with the technology. He also personally uses design and prompting AI programs daily for his business. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s interesting and scary at the same time,\u201d he said. With the rapid growth of AI, he asked, \u201cAre we going to be able to keep up with core aspects of what we know everyday life to be?\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

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Residents say they state government should take the initiative to put in secure guardrails.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5349,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"yoast_head":"\nMass. residents are largely using AI, but have more concerns than excitement about it, poll shows - Boston Relocation Insider<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=5350\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mass. residents are largely using AI, but have more concerns than excitement about it, poll shows - 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