Since 2023, there has been a steady increase in media stories about the potential for automation by artificial intelligence (AI) to displace workers. As sociologists who study what people think and feel about work, we wondered if these narratives were gaining any traction among workers.

Understanding worker attitudes toward automation is a crucial part of studying AI’s broader impact on work and society. If large segments of the workforce feel threatened or left behind by AI, we risk not just economic disruption but a loss of trust in institutions and technological progress.

To explore these attitudes, we fielded a nationally representative survey of 2,519 working Canadians from Sept. 8 to 18 with the support of the Angus Reid Forum. The survey was designed to assess public attitudes and perceptions about the AI-related threat of job displacement.

We found Canadians’ responses were far from uniform, reflecting a mix of concern, skepticism and cautious optimism.

We asked respondents:

“A CEO of a major AI company recently made this statement: ‘AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs and spike unemployment to 10 to 20 per cent in the next one to five years.’ How likely do you think this is?”

The quote came from Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic,

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