Third of university students in Great Britain think AI job losses will cause social unrest, poll finds
One in three university students think AI will wipe out jobs so rapidly it will trigger civil unrest, according to a survey by King’s College London (KCL). Students are among the heaviest users of AI, the poll found, with 77% using it at least a few times a month – compared with 46% of workers – and 27% using it daily or almost daily. They are also among the most pessimistic about AI’s economic impact. More than half said they were convinced job losses would be worse than in a normal recession. The findings are the
Male university students were also the most confident of the groups polled that AI was improving their ability to think for themselves.
Nine out of 10 said they had encountered problems, most commonly factual errors (37%) and made-up sources (31%), but fewer than half said they usually or always checked AI output before using it.
Machine-ingested summary: the claims above reflect a single primary source and have not been weighed against contradicting evidence by a Truvace editor yet.
Evidence
- JournalismThe Guardian2026-05-18
Truvace Impact Record TRV-2026-0073, v1: “Third of university students in Great Britain think AI job losses will cause social unrest, poll finds.” Truvace, 2026-07-12. /record/TRV-2026-0073 (accessed at citation time). sha256 e6d0406c5f7c1ef1…
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