GREAT BRITAIN — King's College London and the KCL Policy Institute released the first findings from a new tracker of attitudes toward artificial intelligence, reporting that 34% of university students think AI will eliminate jobs fast enough to trigger civil unrest. Among the wider public, 22% held the same view.

The tracker, launched by the King's Institute for Artificial Intelligence and the KCL Policy Institute, compares responses from four groups: 1,000 university students; 1,000 young people aged 16 to 29 in England, Wales and Scotland; 500 employers; and 2,000 members of the public across the United Kingdom. More than half of university students said they believed job losses from AI would be worse than in a normal recession.

Among the public, 48% said they would prefer to avoid AI, 41% said they were scared of it, and 24% said they thought AI was positive for humanity.

Usage of the technology was higher among students than workers. The survey found that 77% of university students used AI at least a few times a month, and 27% used it daily or almost daily. Among workers, 46% used AI at least a few times a month.

Views diverged by gender among students. The survey found that 52% of male university students believed AI was positive for humanity. Male university students were the most confident among the groups polled that AI was improving their ability to think for themselves, while female university students were the most likely to say it was not.

Problems with AI outputs were widely reported. The survey found that 90% of university students said they had encountered problems with AI, with 37% reporting factual errors and 31% reporting made-up sources. Fewer than half said they usually or always checked AI output before using it.

On higher education choices, 78% of the university students surveyed said they would still choose to go to university despite the growth of AI, while 30% said they would have chosen a different subject. Among young people, 60% said they believed universities were capable of preparing them for an "AI-shaped job market," but only 36% said they were actually being prepared for one.

"The public, workers, young people and university students are watching the rapid development of AI with more fear than excitement, with real concern for what it will do to jobs, particularly at entry levels, and, therefore, the prospects for our young people and the economy in general," said Bobby Duffy, director of the KCL Policy Institute. "With the right training, policies and institutional support, there is a clear path forward to a more hopeful future, with rising productivity, broader opportunity, higher incomes and faster scientific progress," said Bouke Klein Teeselink, lecturer in philosophy, politics, and economics at King's College London.