Why Artificial Intelligence is not a Salient Issue: Politicizing AI Reduces Mobilization Potential

Giacomo Battiston, Federico Boffa, Eugenio Levi, Alberto Parmigiani and Steven Stillman

No 26063, RFBerlin Discussion Paper Series from ROCKWOOL Foundation Berlin (RFBerlin)

Abstract: Technological disruptions often generates political conflict. Artificial intelligence (AI) is widely expected to transform labor markets and economic systems, yet it has not become a strongly polarizing political issue in advanced democracies. This paper investigates why, by fielding a preregistered survey experiment with 11,418 respondents in the United States, Germany and Italy. We examine factual knowledge on AI and automation, beliefs over its economic effects, demand for policy intervention and signatures of online petitions on Change.org. We document limited knowledge, widespread pessimism on their labor-market impact, substantial demand for government intervention and considerable potential for political mobilization, pointing to an unmet demand for policy responses. We then test the mobilization power of competing political narratives on the economic effects of AI and automation. Overall, across countries and institutional contexts, politicizing AI shifts policy preferences in the expected directions but reduces engagement in political mobilization. In addition, it decreases support for the extreme petitions, thereby reducing polarization. These findings suggest that emerging technologies characterized by high uncertainty and large distributive effects may not follow the historical pattern of polarization associated with past economic shocks. Our results rationalize politicians' hesitation towards increasing the salience of AI and automation.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Automation; Political Polarization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O33 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-03
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