Although it’s a question people are asking, the discussion about AI is shaped—and derailed—by cultural mindsets that push people to either see AI in a virtuous light, leaving biases unquestioned, or to assume that technology is competing with people, working its way toward a takeover of humankind.

Our research finds that Americans hold deep assumptions about AI that challenge open and critical conversations about its social implications and obscure our urgent need as a society to manage its impacts. These ways of thinking limit social activists’ ability to show the public how AI is used within existing systems of power and oppression, augmenting discriminatory and racist policies.

In partnership with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Technology in the Public Interest (TPI) program, the FrameWorks Institute endeavored to explore these deeply held public assumptions to understand how thinking—and framing strategies—may need to evolve when it comes to communicating about the social impact of AI.