The AI BACKLASH has begun: 42% of Brits are cutting back on use

A new report reveals the people who know AI best trust it least, with privacy fears driving more than four in ten of us to pull back

More than four in ten British adults are now deliberately cutting back on how much artificial intelligence they use, according to a report from King’s College London and Responsible AI UK.

The number is 42%. And it isn’t down to people who don’t understand the technology or can’t work it. Plenty of them like AI. They are choosing to keep it at arm’s length anyway, because they don’t trust what happens to their information once it goes in.

Data privacy is main concern

Data privacy and security topped the list of reasons. Nearly a third of people who limit their use said that was why. The next most common reason was simpler still: they just prefer doing things the way they already do them.

Here is the part that should worry the companies building this stuff. The people closest to AI are not its biggest fans.

“The companies selling us new technology often assume that people most familiar with it will like it most,” said Professor Jack Stilgoe of UCL, one of the report’s authors. “Our findings show that this isn’t true. People are becoming more concerned about AI over time, and even the people who use it most are ambivalent”.

Gen Z is backing away

Take Gen Z. They use AI more than any other age group. They also think it carries more risks than benefits, and they are more likely than older people to rein in their own use of it. The generation that grew up with this technology in their pockets is the one quietly stepping back.

The mood is souring across the board. Back in October 2023, 48% of us thought AI carried more risks than benefits. By June this year that figure had climbed to 52%. The share of people who see more upside than downside slipped the other way, from 38% down to 34%.

You can’t opt out

There is a bigger problem lurking underneath all this. Seven in ten people said it would be difficult or impossible to avoid AI even if they wanted to. It is being folded into our phones, our banks, our workplaces and our doctors’ surgeries, whether we asked for it or not.

So what does saying no even look like, when you can’t opt out?

“People need meaningful ways to consent to the use of AI, namely the ability to choose when it is applied, how it interacts with them, and how they can opt out where it matters,” said Professor Kate Devlin of King’s College London, the report’s co-author.

AI should be built to be fair

She made another point worth holding onto. This isn’t a nation split neatly into fans and critics. Most of us are both. “Many individuals hold both opinions at once,” she said. “People acknowledge potential uses and benefits while simultaneously worrying about possible downsides”.

That is the honest picture. Ordinary people are not luddites and they are not cheerleaders. They can see AI might do some good. They can also see it hoovering up their personal information and being pushed on them by companies who stand to make a fortune, and they want a say.

Fair AI would put that say front and centre. It would ask before it took your data, not after. It would let you switch it off in the places that matter, your bank, your doctor, your kids’ school. Consent as the starting point, not an afterthought buried in terms nobody reads.

The technology is coming either way. The report suggests that most of us have quietly decided we want it on our terms, not theirs.

For now, more than four in ten of us are voting with our feet.