AI Has a PR Problem
The AI Daily Brief: Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis
Nathaniel Whittemore
4.7 • 763 Ratings
🗓️ 7 December 2025
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today’s episode explores why public distrust in AI is accelerating, from Edelman data showing sharp divides across income, age, and geography to a broader mix of tech fatigue, social-media backlash, political posturing, and economic anxiety that’s shaping perception more than direct experience with the tools; it also looks at how concerns around job cuts, energy use, and unclear corporate motives amplify the narrative, and what early signals suggest might actually rebuild trust, including real training, clearer intent from leaders, and more concrete examples of the future AI could improve.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Today on the AI Daily Brief, why AI has a PR problem. |
| 0:04.6 | The AI Daily Brief is a daily podcast and video about the most important news and discussions in AI. |
| 0:15.3 | All right, friends, quick announcements before we dive in. |
| 0:17.7 | First of all, thank you to today's sponsors, KPMG, Blitzy, Rovo, and Robots, and Pencils. To get an ad-free version of the show, go to patreon.com slash AI Daily Brief, or you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts. And if you are interested in sponsoring the show, send us a note at sponsors at AIdailybrief.aI. Welcome back to the AI Daily Brief. Today we are talking about a subject, which I'm sure will be |
| 0:38.5 | not a surprise at all to any of you. We are talking about AI's PR problem. There are a number of |
| 0:44.9 | things going on and stories from the last couple of weeks, which all point in a very similar |
| 0:50.6 | direction. So today we're going to talk about those stories, what I think is at the |
| 0:54.8 | root of these challenges, and some very first nascent thoughts on what we can do about it. Let's talk |
| 1:01.5 | first about this Edelman study. Coursera founder Andrew Ng wrote, separate reports by the |
| 1:05.8 | publicity firm Edelman and Pew Research show that Americans, and more broadly large parts of Europe |
| 1:09.9 | in the Western world, do not trust AI and are not excited about it. Despite the AI community's optimism about |
| 1:15.6 | the tremendous benefits AI will bring, we should take this seriously and not dismiss it. The |
| 1:19.7 | public's concerns about AI can be a significant drag on progress, and we can do a lot to address them. |
| 1:24.3 | According to Edelman's survey, in the U.S., 49% of people reject the growing use of AI and |
| 1:28.6 | 17% embrace it. In China, 10% rejected and 54% embrace it. Pew's data also shows many other nations |
| 1:35.4 | much more enthusiastic than the U.S. about AI adoption. Positive sentiment towards AI is a huge |
| 1:40.5 | national advantage. On the other hand, widespread distrust of AI means individuals will be |
| 1:44.9 | slow to adopt it. Valuable projects that need societal support will be stymied. And populist anger |
| 1:49.9 | against AI raises the risk that laws will be passed that hamper AI development. So let's talk about |
| 1:55.3 | this trust study. Edelman publishes their trust barometer every year. And this year, surprise, |
| 1:59.9 | surprise, the big |
| 2:01.0 | theme was AI, and kind of frankly, AI consternation of the type that Andrew was just talking about. |
... |
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