Portsmouth makes UK top ten for searches about an AI apocalypse
Portsmouth features among the UK cities searching most about whether artificial intelligence could pose a threat to humanity, new research has found.
The city ranks eighth in a study by Go Humanize AI, which examined searches about AI taking control, harming humans and potentially causing humanity's extinction across 47 UK cities and urban areas.
Portsmouth recorded 42.44 searches per 10,000 people, with 824 relevant searches counted in total.
The result puts it ahead of Southampton, which ranks tenth with 39.89 searches per 10,000 people. Glasgow sits between the two south coast cities in ninth, with 41.18.
Portsmouth is also close behind seventh-ranked Leeds, which recorded 43.64, and sixth-ranked Westminster on 43.70. Fewer than two searches per 10,000 people separate the three locations.
Oxford leads the national ranking with 59.87 searches per 10,000 people, followed by Manchester and Newcastle upon Tyne. Meanwhile, Sunderland recorded the lowest rate in the study, at 26.36.
The findings put Portsmouth in the leading group for online interest in some of the most unsettling questions surrounding AI, including whether the technology could one day turn against humans.
The ten highest rates of AI extinction-related searches, per 10,000 people:
Oxford: 59.87
Manchester: 54.26
Newcastle upon Tyne: 53.23
Edinburgh: 46.19
Norwich: 44.38
Westminster: 43.70
Leeds: 43.64
Portsmouth: 42.44
Glasgow: 41.18
Southampton: 39.89
Source: Google Trends.