Poll Finds Bipartisan Support for Mandatory AI Safety Reviews

A new survey found that an overwhelming majority of likely voters want powerful AI systems to undergo mandatory formal safety reviews before release to the public. The poll, conducted June 11 and 12 by the AI Policy Institute, asked participants to choose among limited response options.

More than half of voters across both parties supported government-led safety testing, with Republicans showing higher enthusiasm than Democrats.

When offered a choice between banning AI systems or requiring safety measures for advanced models, two-thirds of respondents preferred systems with guardrails. When the choice was between no regulation and an outright ban, voters strongly favored banning AI entirely.

Over 60 percent of both Republican and Democratic respondents said the federal government, not AI companies, should set safety standards and evaluate compliance. More than 80 percent said companies should not build AI systems smarter than humans until they can demonstrate control over those systems.

Forty-seven percent of respondents said they would allow data centers if AI systems met safety and security standards, while 38 percent favored a complete ban. The remainder said they were unsure.

At the beginning of June, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to strengthen cyber defenses and establish a mechanism to test new AI models. The order made any vetting voluntary for companies. Over the past month, the administration has engaged with Anthropic and OpenAI regarding release of their latest models.

On Friday, OpenAI stated it released GPT-5.6 only to a limited group of trusted partners due to government safety requests. The government cleared Anthropic on Friday to give trusted partners access to its Mythos 5 model.