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As Gen Z-ers spend most of their time on screens, one might assume they will have a natural aptitude for working with artificial intelligence. But this appears not to be the case, as this young generation appears to be more afraid than their older counterparts of ending up jobless due to this technology.
More than 30% of 18- to 24-year-olds are afraid that the rollout of AI will have a dramatic effect on the job market, according to a recent survey by jobs website Indeed, conducted in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, India, France, Japan and Germany.
Their older colleagues are less alarmist, with only 15% of those over age 45 fearing that they could lose their job due to AI. This may be explained by the fact that, unlike their elders, members of Gen Z have not been on the job market long enough to have experienced a major technological revolution.
“Older workers have seen this story before: they lived through the rise of the PC and the internet,” Hannah Calhoon, Indeed’s head of AI innovation, told Fortune magazine.
The fears of young workers are certainly amplified by some rather pessimistic reports: US bank Goldman Sachs has estimated that generative AI systems, like ChatGPT, could impact around 300 million full-time jobs worldwide.
Researchers at OpenAI and the University of Pennsylvania have calculated that around 80% of the US workforce could have at least 10% of their work tasks affected by the introduction of AI tools. They thus argue that the most highly qualified workers will have to prepare for more adjustments in the way they work than those with fewer qualifications.
In this context, it’s hardly surprising that young people, who tend to have a higher level of education than their elders, feel overwhelmed by the scale of the changes that AI could bring to their careers.
Rest assured, however, that the uptake of this technology in companies is still at a relatively low level. Newcomers to the job market can, therefore, anticipate their employers’ future needs by training in AI.
This will enable them to acquire new skills and increase their attractiveness at the dawn of what the OECD has dubbed the “AI revolution”.
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