Quinnipiac poll finds most Americans want AI development slowed or stopped

Quinnipiac University published a national poll finding that a majority of Americans want artificial intelligence development slowed or halted until its safety can be evaluated: 47% said development should slow down and 30% said it should stop altogether, against 14% who wanted the current pace kept and 5% who wanted it to move faster. The poll surveyed 1,202 US adults between 24 and 27 September 2026, with a margin of error of ±3.5 percentage points.

The same poll found deep distrust of the industry building the technology: 74% said they had “not so much” trust or none at all in the leaders of AI companies, and 73% said they were very or somewhat concerned that future AI systems could threaten human survival. A large majority, 86%, said they would support requiring AI companies to meet independent safety standards even if doing so slowed development, and 81% said safety mattered more to them than staying at the forefront of innovation. Just over half, 53%, expected AI to do more harm than good in their own daily lives.

The result extended a pattern visible across other 2026 surveys. Gallup had reported in July that the share of Americans saying AI does more harm than good had risen to 39%, reversing two years of improving sentiment, and polling on data centres in August found opposition to local facilities hardening across the political spectrum. As with those polls, the Quinnipiac numbers measured sentiment rather than any specific policy proposal, and a stated preference for “slowing down” AI did not specify by what mechanism that might happen.