Seven in 10 of the UK public are worried about the economic impacts of AI, six in 10 think it will eliminate more jobs than it creates, half think its impact will be worse than a normal recession – and one in five think it will create civil unrest.

People are particularly worried about the impacts on entry-level jobs and young people more generally: nearly six in 10 agree with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s 2025 prediction that AI could eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs within five years.

New research by King’s College London’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Policy Institute finds that while fear of AI’s impact on jobs and society is widespread and cuts across every group, there is somewhat less concern about the impact on people’s own jobs, and some groups are more excited about the positive impacts, particularly employers, men generally and male undergraduate students in particular.

The study, the first wave of a major new tracker on attitudes to AI and The Future of Work, surveyed four groups: a 2,000 representative sample of the general public; a 1,000 sample of young people aged 16-29; 1,000 university students; and 500 employers.

According to the research, half of the public (48%) would rather avoid AI, 41% are afraid of it and only 24% think it’s positive for humanity, compared with 39% who disagree.

Despite this, more say they will (43%), rather than won’t (26%) use it in the future – and men (30%), university students (43%) and particularly male university students (52%) say it is a positive for humanity.

The majority of parents of 11-to-29-year-olds have not engaged with their children on AI – though around three in 10 have discussed career implications and encouraged their children how to use AI tools.

AI and the Future of Work

Seven in 10 workers (69%) are worried about the economic impact of AI job losses – and this concern is just as strong among employers (64%).

Most of the public (57%) think AI will lead to widespread unemployment, with only 17% believing it will create as many or more jobs — compared with nearly half of employers (48%) who take that more optimistic view.

One in five (22%) believe AI will eliminate jobs fast enough to cause civil unrest – rising to a third among university students (34%).

Most of the public (56%) and employers (59%) agree with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s 2025 prediction that AI could eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs within 5 years.

The public are much less convinced by the World Economic Forum prediction that AI will create twice as many jobs as it displaces by 2030: only 25% agree, although employers are again more positive (47%).

The majority of all groups predict that AI’s economic benefits will mainly go to wealthy investors and large companies, rather than workers or society as a whole (65% of the public and 58% of employers).

There is, however, some optimism: 69% of employers are excited about new job opportunities opening up as a result of AI, as are most university students (56%). However, only 35% of workers and 28% of the overall public feel the same.

And, again more positively, most workers are not worried about AI replacing their own job (55%) – although one in 5 graduate workers (19%) are very worried.

AI Taking Effect

While predictions on how AI will affect society and the economy range, how is the emerging technology already impacting the world?

When it comes to cognition, people are much more likely to think that other people’s ability to think has been negatively affected by AI (60% think this is the case) than their own ability (only 27% think this about themselves).

Male university students are the most confident that AI is improving their ability to think for themselves (41%) – and female university students are most likely to think it’s worsening (46%).

Nine in 10 students (89%) who use AI for their studies have encountered problems with it – most commonly factual errors (37%) and made-up sources (31%) – with this causing a serious or moderate problem for 45% of them.

The public underestimate AI’s current reach into the workforce: people guess that 35% of UK workers are in jobs with tasks that AI could potentially perform or enhance, while, the International Monetary Fund estimates that it’s twice this at 70%.

When asked about AI’s main impact on jobs, employers are much more likely to say it is mainly assisting workers (56%) than replacing them (12%), in contrast with public who are more likely to say that AI is replacing workers (32%) than assisting them (24%).

Half of workers who use AI (47%) say it has made no real difference to whether they are better or worse at their job – in contrast to employers, where nearly 9 in 10 (86%) say they seen at least modest improvements in productivity.

A fifth of employers (22%) have already made roles redundant or reduced hiring because of AI – rising to 29% among large organisations.

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Almost two thirds (64%) of employers say investors, shareholders or senior leadership are encouraging them to use AI – with fewer than one in 10 (9%) saying they are discouraged

Despite the growth of AI, 8 in 10 current university students (78%) would still choose to do a degree – but 3 in 10 (30%) would switch to a different subject.

“These findings tell us something important: the British public isn’t asking us to slow down on AI, they’re asking us to do it better,” Professor Elena Simperl, Director of The King’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence, King’s College London, said.

“People want these tools, they want more of them, and they’ve used them enough to know where they fall short. Employers see creative thinking as the top benefit AI can offer, ahead of productivity, but the public and the experts both doubt that today’s tools deliver this.

“That puts a real onus on those of us building and deploying AI to make systems that genuinely support learning, creativity, and critical thinking, and honestly, too few people in the sector are working seriously on this.

“Moreover, women seem to be more cautious about AI than men. That should make us ask who we are designing for, and who is being left out of the conversation.”