Should a 16-Year-Old Have to Run His Own Crisis Helpline?

Is AI safety really about existential risk, or about the here-and-now? David Savage reconnects with Gaia Marcus, now Director of the Ada Lovelace Institute, five years after they first spoke while she was working on the UK’s National Data Strategy.

Gaia shares findings from I Love It, But I Hate It, the Ada and Nuffield Foundation research with 50 young people aged 14–24. The digital-native generation is bucking the usual trend: they are more wary of AI, not less. She also explains why fluency with interfaces is no substitute for social maturity.

They discuss the hidden costs of putting AI into real workflows. Ada’s research on social workers using AI transcription found strong enthusiasm, but also inconsistent use, hallucinated records and unresolved questions about liability. They also cover why individually sensible decisions to cut entry-level hiring could create a sector-wide talent crisis.

On regulation, Gaia explains the “Swiss cheese” model of layered defences and why middle powers can still set conditions for access to their markets. She also describes how surprised the public is that chatbots aren’t regulated already. She closes with advice for 20-year-olds: critical thinking, broad skills, and an experiment that shows how much human knowledge AI models simply can’t see.

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