AI + ML
Researchers say the British public no longer believes that the AI-driven jobs revolution will end in prosperity for those outside the boardroom.
Britons are growing suspicious that the AI employment revolution will end in reduced roles for graduate students, wealthier shareholders and perhaps riots.
More than one in five people in the UK believe AI could eliminate jobs so quickly that it could cause civil war, as fears about automation, hiring freezes and white-collar displacement continue to spread from Silicon Valley boardrooms to public opinion, a new study from King’s College London has found.
The survey found that 69% of workers are concerned about the economic impact of job losses due to AI, while 57% believe that AI technology will destroy more jobs than it will create. More than half also agreed with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s prediction that AI could eliminate half of entry-level white-collar jobs within five years.
The university students had particularly gloomy expressions. About one-third say rapid job losses due to AI could lead to social unrest, and 60% believe the technology will make the job market for graduate students significantly tougher by the time they graduate from college. The study also found that nearly 9 out of 10 students using AI in their learning have already encountered problems with AI, such as factual errors or completely fabricated sources.
Despite the PowerPoint optimism about the future of work favored by the AI industry, many employers acknowledge that AI disruption is already happening. The study found that 22 percent of employers have already made redundant roles or cut jobs due to AI, rising to 29 percent for larger organizations.
These findings stand in contrast to years of increasingly grandiose promises from AI vendors about improving productivity and transforming the workplace. Earlier this year, analysts predicted that AI and automation could eliminate 10.4 million U.S. jobs by 2030, but another study found that executives increasingly value human workers less and less after the introduction of AI tools.
The general public also seems very unconvinced that the economic benefits of AI will be particularly widely shared. Most respondents across all groups surveyed said they expected economic benefits from AI to flow primarily to wealthy investors and large corporations, rather than to workers or society as a whole.
Professor Bobby Duffy, director of the Institute for Policy Research at King’s College London, said workers and students were watching AI developments with “more trepidation than excitement”.
“The public, workers, young people, and university students are viewing the rapid development of AI with more fear than excitement, and have real concerns about how AI will impact particularly entry-level jobs,” he said.
Duffy added that the public remains unconvinced by repeated claims that AI will ultimately create more jobs than it destroys. He said: “Only a quarter agree with the World Economic Forum that AI will create twice as many jobs globally by 2030.”
The survey also found that the public is increasingly asking the government to slow things down before the labor market turns into a real stress test. About two-thirds supported stronger regulation of AI, even if it delayed its development, and a majority also supported government-funded retraining programs and taxes on companies that replace workers with AI.
Not everyone is fully on board the doom train yet. Employers were significantly more optimistic than the public, with most companies saying AI is currently supporting workers rather than replacing them, and nearly 70% saying they were excited about new job opportunities opening up as a result of AI.
Whether the AI industry will ultimately deliver the wave of new jobs and prosperity promised is still an open question. But the British public already seems unconvinced. ®
