Could AI spell doom for humans? Poll finds Minnesotans are worried

Sofia Barnett, The Minnesota Star Tribune on Oct 14, 2026

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MINNEAPOLIS — More than two-thirds of Minnesota voters worry that artificial intelligence could someday destroy humanity, according to a new Star Tribune/KARE 11 Minnesota Poll, an extraordinary fear that joins more familiar anxieties about jobs, politics and the future of American life.

The poll found that 68% of likely voters are very or somewhat concerned that advanced AI could bring about humanity’s destruction. Nearly a quarter are very concerned. And 71% favor government regulation of the industry, a rare point of broad agreement among voters otherwise divided over much of the country’s direction.

The findings capture a peculiar moment in the technology’s ascent: AI is becoming an ordinary feature of daily life, even as many Americans remain uncertain about where it is headed — or whether anyone can control it.

A former AI researcher issued a stark warning about the existential threat posed by artificial intelligence that garnered national attention in September.

For Tanni Weller of White Bear Township, the dangers are already visible.

She worries about AI-generated political advertisements that make people appear to say things they never said, and that companies will replace workers with machines. What troubles her is not merely what the technology might someday become, but what people are already willing to do with it.

“You can’t even tell they’re faking people’s faces,” she said. “I mean, that’s insane.”

And if businesses can replace workers with AI, she wondered, what happens to the people whose jobs disappear?

“What happens to the economy and what happens to the world?” she asked. “What happens to people’s lives and jobs?”

The Minnesota Poll’s findings are based on interviews with 800 Minnesota likely voters conducted from Oct. 5 to 7, 2026. The poll’s margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Among Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters, 79% expressed concern that advanced AI could destroy humanity, compared with half of Republicans and Republican-leaning voters and three-quarters of independents.

Support for regulation was broader still: 83% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters, 75% of independents and 53% of Republicans and Republican-leaning voters favored government oversight.

Younger voters were more supportive of regulation, with 80% favoring it compared with 67% of seniors.

Chad Younkin, a Republican from Oak Grove who supported Trump, worries less about a science-fiction catastrophe than about the technology’s immediate, largely uncharted consequences.

He spoke of the electricity and land needed for data centers, the workers who might lose their jobs and the international competition to develop ever more powerful systems. He understands that technological progress is inevitable. He is less convinced anyone knows what it will cost.

He is wary of regulation, too, fearing that rules could protect the handful of companies already dominating the industry.

“I honestly don’t have a full grasp on it,” he said, “and I don’t think many people do.”

David Jones, a Republican from Belle Plaine who voted for President Donald Trump in 2024, sees considerable promise in AI. But he has wondered what might happen if machines become capable of learning beyond the reach of their creators.

“If we’re not really teaching AI, it’s learning by itself, and once it gets ahead on its own, we’re going to kind of lose control of it,” Jones said. “I just don’t trust the ultimate outcome.”

Jones told pollsters he was very concerned about AI destroying humanity. He supports regulation, too, although he is less certain what meaningful oversight would look like.

“I don’t know how you can regulate it. I really don’t,” he said. “Once it’s out of the barn, it’s — how do you control it?”

For Jones, the question remains whether humanity can maintain control of something it has already set in motion. He believes AI could do considerable good. But he cannot shake the possibility that one day, it might no longer need its creators.

“There’s many good things with AI, supposedly,” he said. But the prospect of losing human control: “It’s not good.”

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