Despite widespread satisfaction with the productivity enhancements that generative AI can unlock among developers, a recent Stack Overflow study has found UK developers are less enthusiastic about AI-powered tools.
The survey of 65,000 developers worldwide, including 3,200 in the UK, highlights the cautious approach to artificial intelligence in Britain, with only 51% of developers in the nation currently using AI compared with 62% globally.
However, there has been a clear change in attitude, with Britain’s 51% adoption up from last year’s 37%.
Britain’s developers are behind when it comes to AI
More specifically, Stack Overflow found nearly a third (29%) of programmers in the UK were indifferent about AI, with only 10% taking a ‘completely unfavourable’ stance. Nevertheless, Britain emerged as one of the least AI-enthusiastic countries in Europe despite the country’s efforts to establish itself at the forefront of artificial intelligence progress.
Moreover, more than one in three (36%) UK developers say they are neither using AI nor have plans to integrate such tools into their development processes in the future.
Painting a similar picture, only 62% of British programmers view AI tools as ‘favorable’ or ‘very favorable’, marking a 10 percentage point drop over the global average.
Among the concerns raised regarding artificial intelligence was the tech’s trustworthiness – only 38% of UK developers feel they can put their trust into artificial intelligence, primarily due to a lack of trust in output and insufficient understanding of a project’s codebase context.
Demographics surfaced by Stack Overflow’s report suggest that it might not be reluctance to get on board with thew new tech that’s preventing AI from becoming widespread in the UK, but rather coding experience. The UK was found to have the highest average years of coding experience, at 18 years, surpassing counterparts in the US by one year, Canada by two years, and India by 10 years.
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