Public Fear of Artificial Intelligence: Evidence-Based Risks, Media Hype, and Commercial Incentives

This paper examines whether public concern about artificial intelligence (AI) reflects documented risks or is amplified by media hype and commercial incentives. It is a literature-based comparison of risk frameworks, public and expert surveys, media research, and economic analyses; no original data were collected. Concern about inaccurate information and bias is proportionate, since both are documented and experts share the public’s concerns. Concern about job loss has a measurable basis in task-exposure estimates, but the public is more worried than experts, and exposure is not the same as job loss. Catastrophic fears cannot be judged from the sources reviewed. Media amplification is plausible but unproven, and deliberate fear generation by companies has not been demonstrated. The findings are provisional because the survey evidence is mostly from the United States, several sources date from 2023–2024, and the evidence on commercial incentives relies largely on commentary. AI Use Statement: Claude (Anthropic) was used to draft the sections titled Comparative Analysis, Discussion and Challenges, and Conclusion and Future Work, based on the authors’ own text and cited sources. It was also used to reorganize the paper into the required structure, check the references, and format the document. Perplexity was used to identify and summarize potential sources and background information. The authors then consulted the original publications to understand and verify the information. QuillBot was used to paraphrase and correct the grammar of author-written text. Google Scholar was used as a scholarly search platform to locate and download cited papers. The authors confirm that they read and verified the cited sources, checked every reference against its original publication, and take responsibility for the content of this paper. No AI tool was used as a source, and all cited sources were consulted and verified by the authors.