The US has consistently shown itself to be most wary of AI in surveys, but actual behaviour by Americans seems to tell a different story.
Marc Andreessen, the prominent venture capitalist and co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, recently highlighted an interesting disconnect between what Americans say about AI and what they actually do with it. Speaking about the gap between public sentiment and revealed preferences, Andreessen offered a theory that cuts to the heart of how we should interpret polling data on emerging technologies—particularly artificial intelligence.
“The reason is because, I mean, you could have a bunch of theories as to why this is. The Marxists claim that people have false consciousness,” Andreessen said. “The explanation I believe is just people have opinions on all kinds of things, particularly when they’re in a context where they get to express themselves. And they’ll have a tendency to kind of express themselves in very heated ways. And then if you just watch their behavior, they’re often a lot calmer and a lot more measured and a lot more rational in what they do.”
Andreessen then pointed to the specific case of AI: “That’s playing out on AI right now, which is, if you run a survey or a poll, for example, of what American voters think about AI, it’s just like they’re all in a total panic. It’s like, oh my God, this is terrible. This is awful. It’s gonna kill all the jobs. It’s gonna ruin everything.”
But the behavior tells a different story entirely. “If you watch the revealed preferences, they’re all using AI,” Andreessen noted. “So they’re downloading the apps, they’re using ChatGPT in their job. You see this online all the time. Now I’m having an argument with my boyfriend or girlfriend. I don’t understand what’s happening. I take the text exchange, I cut and paste it into ChatGPT, and I have ChatGPT explain to me what my partner is thinking and tell me how I should answer so that he or she is not mad at me anymore.”
Andreessen’s observations align with a growing body of survey data that paints Americans as particularly skeptical about AI compared to other nations. According to an Edelman survey, 54% of Chinese say they embrace use of AI, compared to just 17% of Americans. Another survey found that Asia is more excited about AI while Europe is more nervous, with the US falling somewhere in between in stated attitudes but showing particular anxiety about government regulation. In fact, Singapore’s citizens trust their government the most to regulate AI well, while US citizens trust theirs the least.
The paradox becomes even sharper when considering usage patterns. Despite the professed wariness, Americans are adopting AI tools at substantial rates. Interestingly, even generational differences in trust don’t tell the full story—while young people trust AI more than old people globally, US youth trust it the least compared to their international peers. Yet these same young Americans are often the heaviest users of AI applications.
This gap between stated preferences and actual behavior has significant implications for policymakers, business leaders, and AI developers. If public opinion surveys drive regulation while actual usage patterns remain high, there’s a risk of creating rules that don’t reflect how people genuinely want to interact with these technologies. Andreessen’s insight suggests that rather than taking poll numbers at face value, stakeholders should pay closer attention to revealed preferences—what people actually choose to do when given the opportunity. The quiet integration of AI into everyday tasks, from work productivity to relationship advice, may be the more accurate indicator of public sentiment than any survey could capture.