Figure 6.4 Attitudes toward AI vary widely across countries
50.5
49.5
49.2
47.9
47.4
44.6
39.4
39.3
39.3
36.7
35.1
34.6
33.8
33.2
31.5
30.9
30.8
29.7
28.7
28.1
26.2
23.6
21.2
18.8
16.4
16.0
22.3
United States
Italy
Australia
Brazil
Greece
Canada
Argentina
Spain
United Kingdom
Poland
France
Mexico
Netherlands
Hungary
Indonesia
Kenya
Sweden
South Africa
Germany
Japan
Türkiye
Nigeria
Israel
India
Korea, Rep.
0
10
20
10.8
12.2
12.6
9.7
10.4
9.1
12.9
19.0
13.4
15.2
14.6
12.6
16.4
18.1
13.9
16.8
22.1
18.3
17.4
15.7
19.4
20.5
28.9
30
40
50
60
Share of respondents (%)
More concerned than excited
More excited than concerned
Sources: Poushter et al. 2025. Data for the United States are from the American Trends Panel Wave 152, Pew Research
Center, https://www.pewresearch.org/dataset/american-trends-panel-wave-152/.
Note: The data are from the Global Attitudes Survey, Spring 2025 edition, Pew Research Center (Poushter et al. 2025).
For each country, the bars show only the “more concerned than excited” and “more excited than concerned” responses
and hence do not total 100 percent. The remaining share comprises respondents who did not answer or responded with
“equally concerned and excited.” AI = artificial intelligence.
AI makes surveillance cheap and
scalable
Surveillance by government is not new. What AI
changes is its scale, precision, and cost. Facial recognition can identify individuals in crowds in real
time. Predictive analytics can flag potential targets
before they act. Natural language processing can
216
scan millions of messages for keywords or sentiment. These capabilities can transform surveillance from a targeted activity requiring significant
resources into a persistent, scalable one.
Autocracies and weak democracies are more likely to
import surveillance technologies, such as facial recognition AI, especially following episodes or periods
World Development Report 2026