[DarenWatson]

The way we phrase anger with AI doesn't convey the structural realities of what's going on in the knowledge work chain. Gen Z aren't suddenly becoming anti-tech they are acting financially rationally to protect their own economic future.

In the past there was an implicit contract for white-collar employment that was based on the concept of earned experience through a period of manufacturing type work. You enter your profession by performing uninteresting, low-paying manufacturing tasks (such as, writing boilerplate type code or performing low-level quality assurance) while you gain domain expertise and gain the perspective necessary to perform high-value work at a higher level.

LLMs are now exceptionally good at consuming the 20% of an employees entry-level responsibilities.

What I see happening in the enterprise is that management is using AI to justify pulling the ladder up behind them and closing the door behind them. When a senior engineer's or senior analyst's productivity has increased by 30% due to using LLMs, the executive's response is typically not great, we have more time to work on bigger projects, but instead great, we can freeze junior hiring for 2 years.

The entry-level positions in the labor force are being automated, causing seriously low access to those roles for the Gen Z workforce. On the other hand, most senior-level positions are not being available to Gen Z workers as they lack the skills and experience required to qualify for those positions.

Stagnation in the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) technology is the direct result of having no entry or junior level employees to work underneath senior staff members, causing a bottleneck for seniors. Employees generating raw output with AI technology have to check the results (output) for accuracy before integrating into work systems and processes as there are no entry-level employees to provide assistance to senior workers.

Gen Z workers do not dislike the tool (AI) however, they do not like how the tool is being implemented and used currently. Currently, the implementation of AI is driven by cost cutting in terms of labor rather than being focused on providing training and developing Gen Z's human capital for future use.

[pfisherman]

I don’t know about this. After some time sitting with it, I think that mid level and senior ICs - especially those slow to adapt - are going to be at risk of getting replaced by entry level “AI native” kids. Net on net it probably washes out to “normal” patterns of turnover and hiring once things settle.

Think “Smithers, we need to hire some of these kids who know computers!” Only fast forward about 30 years and str.replace(“computers”,”agents”).

[tavavex]

That would only be true is AI usage experience was equivalent to domain experience, especially since the former keeps getting easier. If anything, companies might want to hold onto their seniors and midlevels, because they collectively decimated the process of creating new ones by refusing to hire and train younger workers. If later down the line they have a need for someone young and AI-experienced, they could just reach out into the endless job market and scoop up as much as they like.

[pfisherman]

In some ways domain experience can be a hindrance, with ingrained pathways and practices shaped by constraints that no longer apply. My personal opinion is that you probably want a mix of domain experts who are enthusiastic about AI and some kids who are free of preexisting dogma, and are willing challenge assumptions and try out things that the old heads might chafe at.

An example from software engineering is that all production code should undergo meticulous human review. Saying “no” to this sounds crazy to an experienced SWE, but might not actually be that crazy.

[tavavex]

I think the constraints will remain in some fields, especially where there is a high price to pay for mistakes and consequently additional regulation. You can't vibe review code that will run on medical equipment, aircraft systems or industrial machinery. It doesn't matter how few people work in these fields, the fact that they shut off the tap to making new domain experts, while everyone and their grandma is learning to use AI will mean that the experts will eventually be at a shortage after retirements, while the enthusiastic AI users will be very abundant and underpaid.

[jerrythegerbil]

Pretty sure the article explicitly stated the resentment is due to their clearly stated concerns continually being explained away.

Was your intention to be an example for resentment? Or are you an AI model demonstrating the embodiment of deserving of the resentment?

A voice is being demanded. Being louder and longer is exhausting to endure. Stop rewording and reworking the reasons into something with shape and direction, that only serves to strip the voice demanding being heard. It was written as it was meant. Slop is worse than a carbon copy, of a copy, of a copy.

[tavavex]

I don't understand what you found to be so outrageous in the parent comment. The report addresses both emotional impressions of AI use and fears of it impacting the job market. As someone from gen Z, I don't like the average quality of slop that's being pumped into the internet and further diluting it, but my bigger concern is not living under a bridge in a few years time.