Public attitudes to data and AI: Tracker survey (Wave 3)
The CDEI has published a report detailing the findings from the third wave of its Public Attitudes Tracker Survey, which monitors how attitudes towards data and AI vary over time.
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The Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation (CDEI) conducts an annual Public Attitudes Tracker Survey to understand attitudes towards data and data-driven technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), and how these attitudes change over time. This report builds on the findings from Wave 1 and Wave 2 of the Tracker Survey, providing insight on attitudes towards societal data use, levels of awareness and behavioural uptake of AI, expectations of AI’s impact on society, and preferences for AI’s use in society. This research was conducted by Savanta on behalf of CDEI.
Key findings:
- The public increasingly recognises the value that data use can bring to society, but there is some doubt that the benefits of data use are felt equally across society.
- The public is more likely to recognise individual-level benefits of data than the societal-level benefits. Nonetheless, the public sees value in using data to tackle what are perceived to be the greatest issues facing society.
- The greatest public concerns about data relate to a lack of secure storage leading to hacking or theft; this is possibly attributable to a heightened awareness of negative media stories around data, particularly data breaches and leaks.
- Awareness of AI is very high and has increased over the last year. That said, the public’s primary associations with AI typically reference fear and uncertainty.
- Expectations about the impact of AI on society are predominately neutral. The public’s primary concerns around AI centre on job displacement and de-skilling.
- The public expects the most positive impacts of AI to be increased convenience, reduced costs for consumers, and improvements to key public services such as education, healthcare, and policing. Concerns about wider societal impacts, such as fairness and job security, persist.
- A conjoint question was used to examine preferences for how AI is used. In line with other relevant research, the specific AI application is the most important factor in determining people’s comfort with AI being used. Risks also outweigh benefits in terms of their relative importance.
- The conjoint question findings also highlight the need for clear and effective strategies to mitigate AI risk, as well as ensuring these mitigations are clearly communicated to the public and provide sufficient reassurance.
- Members of the public with very low digital familiarity feel less in control of their data relative to the overall UK population, however they increasingly recognise the benefits of data use in society and trust accountability mechanisms for misuse.
- Among those with very low digital familiarity, changes in levels of awareness and expectations of AI are largely in line with those of the overall UK population.
Next steps
The CDEI has published this report along with relevant data tables to enable further examination of the data. Raw data and conjoint tables are available upon request from public-attitudes@dsit.gov.uk.
Along with other quantitative and qualitative projects run by the CDEI Public Attitudes team, this work forms an important part of the evidence base that informs work within CDEI and across Government. If you have any questions, suggestions, or would just like to share how you have used these insights, please get in touch at public-attitudes@dsit.gov.uk. To sign up for updates about future waves of the survey, register your interest.
Last updated 12 February 2024 + show all updates
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Raw data files have been uploaded for Wave 3 CATI and CAWI. The contact e-mail address for the Public Attitudes team has been updated.
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First published.