For emotional support, 70% would trust a person more, compared with 7% who would choose AI. People also led on health advice and advice about respondents’ own futures.
Asked whom they would trust more to check a fact, 47% of young people in England chose AI, 21% chose a person and 27% trusted both equally. Among young men, the share choosing AI rose to 52%.
Public First surveyed 4,021 people aged 11 to 24 from August 18 to 27. The questions comparing trust in AI and people went to 2,004 respondents. The results form part of a September report on AI and education by former headteacher Anthony Seldon and investor Tim Bunting.
AI also led when respondents were asked about getting an explanation of something they did not understand, by 38% to 24%, and receiving help with writing, by 38% to 27%. The preference reversed on personal matters: human advice led by 60% to 11% on health and 57% to 9% on respondents’ own futures, while emotional support produced the widest gap, at 70% to 7%. These were stated preferences about whom to trust; these preferences do not establish whether AI or human answers were more accurate.
The report’s authors argue that schools have fallen behind young people’s use of the technology. Nearly 87% of respondents had tried an AI tool, but only 9% thought schools and universities were preparing them very well for a world with AI.
Seldon and Bunting warn that pupils could increasingly question the value of school if it gives AI too little attention. Their proposed 10-point plan includes a rapid-response AI unit within the Department for Education and a network of 100 schools and colleges serving as AI champions.