Benefits and concerns

To find out about overall attitudes towards different AI technologies, for each technology they were asked about, respondents indicated the extent to which they think the technology will be beneficial, and the extent to which they are concerned about the technology.

The extent to which AI is perceived as beneficial or as concerning varies greatly according to the specific use. 

The British public tend to perceive facial recognition technologies, virtual and robotic assistants, and technologies having health or science applications as very or somewhat beneficial. 

A majority says facial recognition for unlocking mobile phones, at border control and for police surveillance is somewhat or very beneficial. In addition, over half also say that virtual assistants, both smart speakers and healthcare assistants; simulations to advance knowledge in both climate change research and in education; risk assessments for cancer and loan repayments; and robotics for vacuum cleaners and care assistants are beneficial.

AI uses with the highest percentage of people indicating ​‘very’ or ​‘somewhat’ beneficial are cancer risk detection (88% think beneficial) and facial recognition for border control and police surveillance (87% and 86% respectively think beneficial). 

These attitudes resonate with previous research, which found that people are positive about the role of AI in improving the efficiency of day-to-day tasks, the quality of healthcare, and the ability to save money on goods and services. Figure 3 shows how beneficial people believe each use of AI to be.

The British public are most concerned about AI uses that are associated with advanced robotics, advertising and employment. More than half of British adults are somewhat or very concerned about the use of robotics for driverless cars and autonomous weapons, the use of targeted advertising online for both political and consumer adverts, for calculating job eligibility and for virtual healthcare assistants.

These findings complement those from previous studies that indicate concern around the use of AI in contexts that replace humans, such as driverless cars, and in advertising. Figure 4 shows the level of concern people have about each use of AI.

The proportion of the public selecting ​‘don’t know’ in response to how concerned they are about each AI use is relatively small, suggesting little ambivalence or resignation towards AI across different uses.

The British public do not have a single uniform view of AI – rather, there are mixed views about the extent to which AI technologies are seen as beneficial and concerning depending on the type of technology. To further understand these views, we created net benefit scores by subtracting the extent to which each respondent indicated the AI use was concerning from the extent to which they indicated the AI use was beneficial.

Positive scores indicate that perceived benefit outweighs concern, negative scores indicate that concern outweighs perceived benefit and scores of zero indicate equal levels of concern and perceived benefit. 

• Benefit level outweighs concern for 10 of the 17 technologies. These are: cancer risk detection; simulations for climate change research and education; robotic vacuum cleaners; smart speakers; assessing risk of repaying a loan; robotic care assistants; and facial recognition for unlocking mobile phones, border control and police surveillance. These findings add to the Ada Lovelace Institute’s 2019 research into attitudes towards facial recognition, where findings showed that most people support the use of facial recognition technology where there is demonstrable public benefit.

• Concern outweighs benefit level for five of the 17 technologies. These are: autonomous weapons; driverless cars; targeted social media advertising for consumer products and political ads; and AI for assessing job eligibility.

Some technologies are seen as more divisive overall, with equal levels of concern and perceived benefit reported. This is the case for virtual healthcare assistants, and welfare eligibility technology. Figure 5 shows mean net benefit scores for each technology.

We analysed whether perceived net benefits for each AI technology differed according to differences in the sample such as sex, age, education level, and how aware, informed or interested people are in new technologies.

• The public think differently about facial recognition technologies depending on their level of education, how informed they feel about new technologies, and their age.
  • People who feel more informed about technologies or who hold degree-level qualifications are significantly less likely than those who feel less informed or do not hold degree-level qualifications to believe that the benefits of facial recognition technologies outweigh the concerns.
  • People aged 65 and over are significantly more likely than those under 65 to believe that the benefits of facial recognition technologies outweigh the concerns.

• Awareness of a technology is not always a significant predictor of whether or not people perceive it to be more beneficial than concerning. For uses of AI in science, health, education and robotics, being aware of the technology is associated with perceiving it to be more beneficial than concerning. These include: virtual healthcare assistants, robotic care assistants, robotic vacuum cleaners, autonomous weapons, cancer risk prediction, and simulations for climate change and education.

• However, awareness can also exacerbate concerns. Being aware of the use of targeted social media advertising (both for consumer and political ads) is associated with concern outweighing perceived benefits. Those who feel more informed about technology are also less likely to see targeted advertising on social media for consumer products as beneficial, compared with those who feel less informed.

The Appendix🔗provides more information about the analyses outlined in this section, including further results showing the effects of demographic and attitudinal differences on perceived net benefit for each technology. The Appendix🔗also includes a figure showing how the perceived net benefits for each AI technology differ according to differences in sex, age, education level, and how aware, informed or interested people are with new technologies.

These findings support existing research from the Ada Lovelace Institute into public attitudes around data, suggesting that public concerns should not simply be dismissed as reflecting a lack of awareness or understanding of AI technologies, and further that raising awareness alone will not necessarily increase public trust in these systems.

More qualitative and deliberative research is needed to understand the trade-offs people make between specific benefits and concerns. The nuanced impact of awareness about attitudes towards AI technologies is evident in the range of specific benefits and concerns people select relating to each one technology, described in the next section.