Despite doomsday warnings, few Danes fear AI will replace their jobs

A new survey by Dansk Industri (the Confederation of Danish Industry) and the polling firm Epinion finds that few Danes fear artificial intelligence will take over their jobs. A large majority do not expect to be replaced by AI in the future. The result stands out against a public debate that has taken on an increasingly dark tone.

That debate was sharpened recently when a former Anthropic employee wrote on X that AI could "kill us all before the end of the decade." Finans, the Danish business newspaper that reported the survey, says such doomsday scenarios have by now been sketched out quite forcefully, and that conversation about the downsides of AI has truly taken off.

Even so, the survey suggests that this fear does not carry over to people's own working lives. Despite warnings about humanity's potential demise, Danes appear largely unworried about AI taking their jobs.

The available text covers only the opening of the report, so it gives no exact percentages, no breakdown by sector or age group, and no detail on how many people were surveyed or how the questions were worded. It also does not include comments from Dansk Industri or Epinion on what the findings mean.

The finding matters because it separates two kinds of concern: abstract fears about AI as a threat to humanity, and the practical question of job security. For Danish employers, policymakers and anyone following how the country is adopting AI, the survey indicates that workers' attitudes are calmer than the loudest public warnings might suggest.