Gen Z Resentment Toward AI Grows as Adoption Stagnates and Workplace Fears Mount

kristianp

> While the majority of Gen Zers (51%) still use the technology weekly, growth has slowed to a crawl, increasing only four percentage points over the past year. This stagnation in adoption is accompanied by a sharp decline in positive sentiment. Sell NVIDIA!!!

trolleski

No one cares about GenZ or any others, the AI is for the billionaires.

xiphias2

Token cost started increasing exponentially for frontier LLMs, and they improved mostly on coding tasks incredibly over the last half year while staying behind in non-verifiable tasks. The main social problem with automation in general was that less intelligent people have been left behind as only boring physical tasks are left for them to do, and people don't generally want to go back destroying their body from the prospects of an office job. At some point frontier AI will only getting only worthwile to use for only super highly intelligent and motivated AI researchers which is a tiny part of the population.

roenxi

> ...while 31% of Gen Z now report feeling outright anger toward the technology... 31% seems remarkably high. Here we seem to be running up against the limitations of statistics. It is hard to interpret whether this is a scared-and-angry sort of angry or if there is something AI-related happening that is making them angry. I might have been lucky in my experiences, but generally if people get angry there is a reason other than "things are changing".

feverzsj

They can still do gig works for training AI until AI replaces all the gig workers.

aetherspawn

I want the world to go back to the way it was before, so I’m going to boycott it. Sue me, I have that right.

dauertewigkeit

We are building general thinking machines with the aim of replacing all human labour, ... but humans won't be replaced, they will find other jobs, because when we introduced tractors they were able to find other jobs, ... totally the same scenario. I love the cognitive dissonance. Even in the best case scenario where the generated wealth will be distributed, and somehow we will be able to keep them in check (unlikely), what would be the point of life in a world where machines can best us at everything?

rvz

This is AGI.

bsenftner

This Gen Z resentment is manufactured, so there is yet another pool of people that are angry enough to deludedly back the next aggressive idiot "savior", justifying an attack on the general population, ensuring authoritarianism is viewed to be the "only way forward."

solenoid0937

Incredibly sad how many people have no concept of collective achievement, or an understanding of what technological progress buys all of humanity. It always comes at a cost, and it's the reason we aren't dying of starvation and plague in a cold winter field at the age of 45. I guess cynicism is trendy.

kshahkshah

The actual study doesn’t compare between generations. So I’ve know way of knowing if GenZs attitudes are much different comparatively. Interesting results regardless when they compare the shift of 2025 to 2026

amanaplanacanal

I just wish we would stop calling LLMs AI.

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.

kypro

I worry and feel so much for people younger than me. As someone who entered the workforce during the GFC things were hard, but I always felt like you could make smart decisions, make decent money and build a decent life. Additionally there were plenty of interesting jobs out there around this time that required real skill and effort which you could become an expert in. Software was really hard pre-2010. You actually had to study it because there was no AI, no stackoverflow, no NPM, etc, etc. You had to learn how to write code the hard way, typically from people who already knew how or text books, and more importantly, learn how to solve real problems often applying maths (i.e. you couldn't import a library to find the shortest path in a graph). Similarly video editing, graphic design, 3d modelling, music production, were some other fields which were really hard. Again, there was no YouTube tutorials or AI and even the software itself was so limited compared to what we have today. You had to spend years learning the craft which meant the skill difference between those who had put years into their thing and those who had not was enormous. I miss that world so much... I liked not being good at things and finding people who had what seemed like inhuman talent at things. I had a friend who was insanely good at graphic design and the stuff they'd send me would blow me away. The level of detail and precision didn't even seem possible to me. But now I can generate something almost just as good with AI. Other examples would be how people who spent years practising music are now indistinguishable from someone with AI. Or how people who spent years learning blender are producing models which are indistinguishable from someone with a Meshy subscription. There's just no reason to dedicate yourself to anything anymore and even if you did you're probably not going to get a job anyway. I am a hardcore AI doomer, but assuming the doom scenario isn't on the table and we simply see a concentration in wealth and mass white-collar job losses, I know I'd probably be fine or maybe even benefit from that because I grew up in a time where it was hard but very much possible to acquire a talent and use it to build wealth. Gen Z on the other hand stand no chance. Today's job market feels corrupt and product of pure luck. You either get extremely lucky and somehow land a good job, or know someone who can get you through the door. In the last year I've interview some insanely talented people from the best universities and we have decided not to employ them because we just don't need to. It's honestly hard for me to comprehend being that motivated and working that hard to struggle to even find an entry level job at the relatively mediocre company I work for... We need to question if more productivity is always good. It seems to me the way that productivity is distributed is essential. If it's largely just corporations benefitting from the productivity gains then we're creating a world that's not suitable for humans. This will create a world in which productivity, and therefore wealth, will concentrate to fewer and fewer people, whilst the average person struggles to find ways to demonstrate their employability. If AI is creating a world that is much richer by some metrics, but much poorer by most the average person cares about, then is it even a technology worth having? Why would Gen Z consent to this world we're building and not seek to overthrow (rightly imo) those who have created it? Technology is suppose to make our lives better not make them harder and financially suppress us.

alecco

AI (even if pseudo-AI) is already a huge productivity multiplier and becoming better... but due to demand also becoming more expensive. And if things keep going this way, only corporations with deep pockets and the top 1% will be able to afford it upfront. I wish Gen Z channeled their anger into making distributed AI instead of turning their backs on the problem or doing protests that will get nowhere since Boomers are still the biggest voting block. small + local + distributed Where is the Gen Z hacker movement? The very few into AI are all sellouts wishing they could join a big lab.

metalman

make no mistake, this is not "resentment" this is a collapse of faith, which having recently experienced myself, is what happens when the expectation is that the frog should do the right thing™, and climb out, stoke the fire (just a little bit), and climb back in the pot

euroderf

Eventually it will dawn on most people that it is time once again to shorten the standard work week. Until then it's all talking in circles.

ChrisArchitect

Month old post OP; Discussion then: Study found that young adults have grown less hopeful and more angry about AI https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47704443 and related: The More Young People Use AI, the More They Hate It https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47963163

deferredgrant

The entry-level ladder matters. If AI removes junior work without creating a new way to become senior, the labor market gets weird fast.

silexia

There certainly is a problem of p companies laying people off and not making new hires, but there is a bigger problem in that this is the most dangerous technology in human history and could lead to our extinction in the next year or two.