One of the ways Pew Research has been gauging American attitudes about AI for the past few years is by asking this question that measures people’s excitement against their concern. They started asking this in 2021, in the pre-ChatGPT days, and in the latest survey six years later, Americans in general are less excited than ever—and also tied for the most concerned ever.
But one group is trending the opposite direction from the rest: people in the 50-64 age range, a group that mostly—though not entirely—overlaps with what we call Generation-X, which by my math is people who are 46-61.
According to Pew’s latest findings, the majority of Americans are more concerned than excited, at 52%. Pew’s 2021 survey that used the same question found that 37% were more concerned than excited. The standout finding in the latest study according to Pew is that among adults under 30 years-old, 55% are more concerned than excited—the first time the youngs have been so pessimistic in this survey, but other, related surveys of young people have produced similar findings lately.
But it’s the 50- to 64-year-olds I find the most interesting. They were the only group a majority of whom didn’t give the “more concerned than excited” response—though to be clear, only 8% gave the “more excited than concerned” answer, so let’s not act like this group wants to kiss a chatbot or something.
What’s more, fewer and fewer respondents in this age group have been answering “more concerned than excited” in each of the past four surveys. It was 59% in 2023 (the second highest among the groups), 56% in 2024, and 52% in 2025.
Oddly, among 50- to 64-year-old respondents, Pew notes that 69% believed there would be “fewer jobs” over the next 20 years in 2024, and that percentage is actually up in 2026. It’s now 72%.
It’s worth keeping in mind that according to Pew’s methodology this isn’t a single group of people being asked the same questions over and over. There are new recruits each year. Even if it were the same people, Pew is labeling them by age at the time they’re being surveyed, so the same person could theoretically have been in last year’s group of 30- to 49-year-olds, and this year’s group of 50- to 64-year-olds.
And even though the trend in this group’s answers over time is a little out of step with the rest of the age groups, their answers aren’t massively different from the rest when taken as a whole. Still, it’s a puzzling quirk worth exploring.
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