TikTok ban is popular with voters as AI stirs privacy fears, poll shows

Many swing-state voters say they are worried that the growing presence of artificial intelligence could one day diminish privacy and hurt job prospects, according to a new Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll that also found majority support for efforts to ban TikTok.

More than half of respondents in seven battleground states predicted a negative impact from AI on privacy, with nearly half seeing a future negative impact on jobs, the poll found. At the same time, artificial intelligence was seen having positive impacts on health by 45% of respondents and on education by 41%.

In the survey, half of voters support banning TikTok in the U.S. if its Beijing-based parent ByteDance Ltd. fails to divest the video-sharing platform under a new law signed by President Joe Biden last month. Two-thirds of those polled said they were worried that the app could be used by foreign adversaries to collect data and manipulate information in the U.S.

The poll results offer a window into how Americans view hot-button tech challenges in Washington, including AI’s rapid emergence, concentration of market power in a handful of big companies and security concerns raised by TikTok’s Chinese ownership.

—Bloomberg News

California voters may decide if financial literacy should be required in school. Should they?

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California high school students may have an additional course added to the eight that are needed to graduate.

These courses, such as the ethnic studies requirement passed in 2021, all entered the school curriculum at the direction of the State Board of Education. This proposed new requirement — a financial literacy class — may end up on high school schedules at the direction of voters.

The effort to put financial literacy education into California high schools has been decades-long, with various lawmakers trying and failing to make the class a requirement. One nonprofit seeks success by placing the question on a ballot measure this November. If passed, it would be the first time that curriculum requirements were established at the direction of voters.

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