AI Optimism: US 36%, Afghanistan 37%

The real news

The story, straight

US AI optimism: 36%. Afghanistan: 37%.

Not a verdict on either country: a Gallup–Microsoft survey of AI-aware adults asking whether AI will mostly help people in their country. The US ranked fourth from last among 37 countries surveyed, not the whole planet.

That 1-point gap is not proof of a meaningful difference.

All-In highlighted the comparison on November 7, 2026. The survey ran April–July 2026 and was published September 22.

Old evidence, fresh conversation.

AI systems learn patterns from examples and use them to tackle new tasks. Deep learning stacks processing layers to learn complicated patterns.

Canada helped build those foundations: Toronto's Geoffrey Hinton and Montreal's Yoshua Bengio shared the 2018 Turing Award with Yann LeCun. Canada helped raise the thing; now the family needs reassurance.

Canada also has clean power in abundance: its Energy Fact Book reports 53% hydroelectricity, 78% non-emitting electricity and the world's 3rd-largest hydro output. Non-emitting means generation without greenhouse-gas emissions, not zero environmental impact.

Moving water turns turbines to make hydroelectricity. But abundant is not unlimited: Quebec restricted new large data-centre power requests in 2024, and drought squeezes hydro output.

Among AI-aware adults, 64% in Canada and 74% in the US feel worried. Having the brains and the outlets does not automatically deliver confidence.

The useful twist: Canadian daily users report 54% worry versus 72% among less-frequent users. That association proves no cure.

Try a low-stakes task, check the answer, and judge the benefit.

Repost this continental group hug.

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