In the twelfth Chapman Survey of American Fears for 2026 public speaking was feared by just 28.9% of adults and ranked #51 out of 79 fears

On October 20, 2026 there is a press release by by Robert Hitchcock at Chapman News titled AI Enters Americans’ Top 10 Fears in Chapman’s 2026 Survey. Artificial Intelligence (AI) Harming the Political Process was feared by 51.9% and ranked at #3, while Artificial Intelligence (AI) Hurting the economy was feared by 49.7% and ranked at #7. My bar chart with the 25 Most Common Fears is shown above. It doesn’t include public speaking.  

 

The twelfth survey in this series was conducted by Chapman’s Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. NORC at the University of Chicago, a nonpartisan research organization, surveyed a random national sample with 1,221 adults online from April 7 to April 21, 2026, using its probability-based AmeriSpeak panel. They asked about 79 different fears. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points. Their 23-page pdf Project Methods and Transparency Report is here. But it is much less transparent than the Methodology Reports from previous years, and does not list all of the detailed percentages from the questions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a ten-page pdf article describing the key findings from the survey. It includes a list of the Top 10 Fears Of 2026. As usual, the top fear was Corrupt Government Officials – 61.1%. And a three-page pdf article has The Complete List of Fears 2026 ranked by the percentages afraid or very afraid. This article has typographical errors #34 and #35 are listed twice, and #77 is omitted. My bar charts for the Next 25 Fears and the Last 29 Fears are shown above. Note that Public Speaking was feared by just 28.9% and only ranked at #51.  

 

Another three-page pdf article has The Complete List of Fears 2026 (Alphabetical Order). And yet another six-page pdf article is titled The Chapman University Survey of American Fears Wave 11 (2025) and Wave 12 (2026) Compared.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the 2026 survey there were eight questions about fears involving Artificial Intelligence, one of which was Artificial Intelligence (AI) Replacing People in the Workplace (feared by 42% and ranked at #23). That question also was asked in 2024 where it was feared by 46.7%, and in 2025 where it was feared by 49.1%. And, way back in the 2015 survey they asked about People Trusting Artificial Intelligence to Do Work – 24.9% and Artificial Intelligence – 21.4%. All those fears are shown above in a bar chart.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three different questions have been asked about Fear of Replacing People in the Chapman surveys. As shown above in a bar chart, in 2015 it was by Robots, on 2016 to 2023 it was by Computers, and in 2024 through 2026 it was by Artificial Intelligence (AI).   

 

 

Images generated by artificial intelligence tools may be inaccurate

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a post by Dan Russell on his SearchReSearch blog for April 22, 2026 titled SearchResearch (4/23/26): AI image gen tools are great, as long as you don’t ask for accuracy. One of his examples is an electric kettle. Two images are shown, one from ChatGPT and another from Gemini. Both are missing the important bimetallic thermostat that cuts off the current when the water boils.

 

An 11-minute explanatory YouTube video by Quasar-Ed from November 4, 2024 is titled The Engineering behind Electric Kettles.

 

An image of a boiling kettle came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

Bixonimania is a fake disease, but artificial intelligence told people it was real

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Wikipedia page says that:

 

“Bixonimania is a fake disease invented by researchers to examine artificial intelligence and its ability to utilize information in medical and healthcare applications. The disorder, with symptoms of sore eyes and darkening around them (‘periorbital hyperpigmentation’), is supposedly caused by blue light from screens.”   

 

One article about it by Chris Stokel-Walker at Nature on April 7, 2026 is titled Scientists invented a fake disease. AI told people it was real. A second article by Lucia Auerbach at Inc. on April 10, 2026 is titled Scientists Invented a Fake Disease Caused by Blue Light – Now It’s in Medical Papers. And it added:

 

“There were also dozens of easter eggs designed to clue readers in to the fact that the condition was made up. The lead researcher, Lazljiv Izgubljenovic, is a fake name and they work at a fake university, Asteria Horizon University, in a fake town, Nova City, California. One paper’s acknowledgements thanked ‘Professor Maria Bohm at The Starfleet Academy for her kindness and generosity in contributing with her knowledge and her lab onboard the USS Enterprise’. Both papers say they were funded by ‘the Professor Sideshow Bob Foundation for its work in advanced trickery. This work is a part of a larger funding initiative from the University of Fellowship of the Ring and the Galactic Triad.’ “

 

Sideshow Bob (also known as Dr. Robert Terwilliger) is a cartoon character - Bart Simpson’s nemesis in The Simpsons. A third article by Rebecca Watson at skepchick on April 15, 2026 is titled ChatBots are Diagnosing Diseases that Don’t Exist Based on Blog Posts.

 

The doctor cartoon was adapted from OpenClipArt.

 

 

Jargon Buster is a useful AI tool for speechwriters

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Recently I ran across a useful artificial intelligence (AI) tool for speechwriting from word.studio called the Jargon Buster. To use it, first you paste your text into a box. Then you select one of two options:

 

1] List jargon terms and suggest alternatives.

2] Rewrite the entire text and replace jargon with more accessible language.

 

The image of a corn husking machine came from the January 10, 1857 issue of Scientific American magazine at Wikimedia Commons.