Nearly half of young people prefer AI to humans for fact-checking
A recent survey reveals that nearly half of young people in England prefer artificial intelligence over humans for fact-checking.
By Sky News
Nearly half of young people in England would prefer artificial intelligence to a human when checking whether information is accurate, according to new research highlighting how quickly the technology is becoming part of everyday learning.
A survey of 4,021 people aged between 11 and 24 found 47% would choose AI for fact-checking, compared with 21% who would prefer a person.
The preference was even stronger among young men, with 52% choosing artificial intelligence.
The findings form part of a wider report examining whether England’s education system is adapting quickly enough to the rapid growth of AI.
Researchers found that nearly nine in ten young people surveyed had already used an AI tool.
Despite that widespread adoption, only 9% believed schools and universities were preparing them very well for a world in which artificial intelligence will play an increasingly important role.
The report, written by historian and education specialist Sir Anthony Seldon and technology investor Tim Bunting, argues that a growing gap is emerging between the technology young people use outside the classroom and the way they are taught.
AI tools can now answer questions, summarise documents, explain difficult concepts, generate images, write computer code and assist with research.
That has created opportunities for students to receive rapid and personalised assistance with their learning.
But increasing reliance on the technology also creates risks.
Generative AI systems can produce answers that sound authoritative while containing inaccurate or invented information.
Using an AI chatbot to check whether something is true therefore does not necessarily provide independent verification, particularly if the original information and the AI’s answer ultimately draw on similar online sources.
The findings raise questions about the importance of teaching young people how to verify AI-generated information rather than simply accepting an answer because it has been produced by a computer.
Other research has already highlighted concerns around young people’s exposure to misinformation online.
The Electoral Commission found this year that almost half of young people routinely encountered false political information, while confidence in identifying reliable material was mixed.
The rapid adoption of AI adds another layer to that challenge.
Instead of searching through several websites and assessing the reliability of individual sources, users can increasingly receive a single generated answer to a question.
That can make finding information considerably faster, but it can also make the original source of a claim less obvious.
The new education report argues that schools need a more consistent approach to artificial intelligence.
It says almost half of schools currently have no AI policy, while around two-thirds provide no guidance to pupils about how the technology should be used.
The authors are calling for a national framework to help schools integrate AI into education while retaining critical thinking and human interaction.
The findings do not suggest young people have abandoned human judgement altogether.
More than one in five still preferred another person for fact-checking, while attitudes towards artificial intelligence vary according to the task and individual using it.
However, the scale of AI adoption among younger people indicates that the technology is rapidly becoming a normal part of how a generation searches for and evaluates information.
For schools, the challenge may increasingly be less about whether pupils should use AI and more about teaching them when to trust it, when to question it and how to check the evidence behind the answers it provides.