The More Young People Use AI, the More They Hate It • Hacker News Board

Re: The More Young People Use AI, the More They Hate It

#51

Post by rickydroll » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 3:49 PM UTC

isoprophlex wrote: post #20

anianz wrote: post #13

> Freystaetter and Gottlieb both say that instead of their own generation, they are more worried about Gen Alpha and other young people that come after them, who lose their chance to develop healthy relationships with technologies when they become mandatory and ubiquitous. I remember similar concerns from Millennials about Gen-Z with the Internet and social media. In the end the Internet and Social Media Gen-Z grew u…

I have three (gen A) kids, of which two are of the age to have opinions on this. They tell me I don't have a real job because I just tell the computer what to do, and I don't do the thing myself (to which I can't help but respond that they're absolutely right). If I try to spin them a bullshit story, they tell me how can that be true and maybe I got brainwashed by AI. Also they hate ads with a passion. If anything, I…

This smells to me an awful lot like the

"You're not a real ham if you don't use Morse code", "You're not a real machinist if you use CNC", "Your mechanical drawing skills are going to atrophy if you use CAD CAM. "You should manually tape PCB layouts, so you have more control.

And another grandfather's favorite, "Why do you want to use the forklift? You won't always have one, and a pry bar and rollers are good enough, and you learn the value of real work."

Re: The More Young People Use AI, the More They Hate It

#52

Post by lesuorac » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 3:50 PM UTC

glhaynes wrote: post #47

burnte wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They tell me I don't have a real job because I just tell the computer what to do, and I don't do the thing myself (to which I can't help but respond that they're absolutely right). For most of computing history this has been the case, too!

Can't be doing rEaL woRk unless you're flipping front panel switches to input machine code instructions.

I mean what is real work anyways?

Like take finance where people just email broken spreadsheets around all day. If they stop doing that then farmers can't get loans to buy crops which means crops don't get planted and so on-so-forth.

Certainly emailing spreadsheets doesn't seem very "real" but there's actual value in providing liquidity it's just not physically demanding.

On the flip side, professional sports is very physically demanding but can you really call what kids do for fun "real work"?

Re: The More Young People Use AI, the More They Hate It

#53

Post by jitler » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 3:50 PM UTC

fluidfortune wrote: post #3

The irony here is this: AI actually has the potential to absolutely level the playing field. Right now corporations are building the infrastructure out wildly and incorporating it into everything. They’re concerned about a race to the top while creating absolute inefficiency and ignoring responsible, sustainable growth. The task of GenZ should not be to avoid AI, in my opinion. Rather, embrace it. Own it. WEAPONIZE I…

> WEAPONIZE IT.

The moment you start doing this at any scale, the companies will notice, and after a few winks, nods, and campaign donations, you will not be able to use it anymore.

Re: The More Young People Use AI, the More They Hate It

#54

Post by cedws » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 3:51 PM UTC

We know that AI will ultimately just end up enriching a very small group of people with no change in prosperity for working and middle classes. CEOs are openly saying as much. For the past number of decades the rise in productivity has been completely detached from wages, it'll be no different this time.

We're also no strangers to enshittification, we have first hand experience of technology causing negative societal effects when in the hands of for-profit entities.

Re: The More Young People Use AI, the More They Hate It

#55

Post by wduquette » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 3:51 PM UTC

My daughter's a senior in college. She recently was part of a group presentation; she did not use AI to prepare for it, but all of the other group members did. She was the only one who could answer follow-on questions.

If you use AI to understand things for you, you're short-changing yourself.

Re: The More Young People Use AI, the More They Hate It

#56

Post by john_strinlai » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 3:52 PM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #49

john_strinlai wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the genie is out of the bottle. no government on earth will make ai outright illegal. they are the perfect thing to shrug accountability onto, let alone all of the actual semi-useful reasons of keeping ai legal. how would you even make it illegal? people have local models everywhere. if your country makes it illegal but mine doesnt, people from your country will just vpn and access them in my country. it would have t…

We make child porn illegal which is even easier to copy than local LLMs. It doesn’t work perfectly, of course there are people who still have it, but we could dramatically reduce the number of people with local LLMs if we punished possession with long prison sentences.

i am sorry, i was trying to take you seriously, but you completely lose me at comparing an llm to child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and suggesting possession of an llm should be met with similarly long prison sentences. that is absurd.

a central tenet of justice is that the punishment fits the crime. for CSAM, it is obvious why extremely long prison sentences are fitting. the damage CSAM causes is immense and hard to even capture with words.

the damage llms cause is... not even close.

Re: The More Young People Use AI, the More They Hate It

#57

Post by chubot » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 3:52 PM UTC

isoprophlex wrote: post #20

anianz wrote: post #13

> Freystaetter and Gottlieb both say that instead of their own generation, they are more worried about Gen Alpha and other young people that come after them, who lose their chance to develop healthy relationships with technologies when they become mandatory and ubiquitous. I remember similar concerns from Millennials about Gen-Z with the Internet and social media. In the end the Internet and Social Media Gen-Z grew u…

I have three (gen A) kids, of which two are of the age to have opinions on this. They tell me I don't have a real job because I just tell the computer what to do, and I don't do the thing myself (to which I can't help but respond that they're absolutely right). If I try to spin them a bullshit story, they tell me how can that be true and maybe I got brainwashed by AI. Also they hate ads with a passion. If anything, I…

They tell me I don't have a real job because I just tell the computer what to do, and I don't do the thing myself (to which I can't help but respond that they're absolutely right)

Hm interesting

So they are making the distinction between regular "human brain" coding and AI-assisted coding?

Regular coding could be described as "not doing the thing yourself, but telling the computer what to do"

(FWIW I do think there is a huge difference; however I am not sure the general public has a very good idea of what "programming" is. I remember having some code up on my screen and my educated family was confused, even at the concept)

Re: The More Young People Use AI, the More They Hate It

#58

Post by jdw64 » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 3:52 PM UTC

mzi wrote: post #50

jdw64 wrote: post #2

The irony is that AI is best at replacing the work of the upper classes. Synthesizing different opinions, summarizing them, and producing outputs based on statistics are things AI does well. But AI is actually not very good at replacing an entire lower-level worker’s job as a whole. It works well only when that work is broken down into smaller and smaller tasks. The core problem is this: the coercive force of AI use…

> In the past, a job that would have given me two months and paid $5,000 is now expected to be completed in two weeks for the same $5,000. So you have quadrupled your income? That seems like the opposite of a collapse.

Because of the nature of freelance work, jobs are not always steady. Most freelancers constantly worry that the work may disappear tomorrow.

In my case, unlike contract freelancers who are hired for a fixed period, I usually work on a project-delivery basis. Of course, well-known programmers may be able to negotiate salary-like contracts, but that is not my situation.

I think my earlier example may have been unclear. What I meant was not that the price increased. I meant that a project that used to take two months for $5,000 is now expected to be delivered in two weeks for the same $5,000.

That point probably needed more explanation. In the current freelance market, prices have collapsed more than many people realize.

My English is not perfect, since I am not from the English-speaking world, so I may have caused some confusion. Please understand my point as: work that used to reasonably take two months is now expected to be completed within two weeks.

Re: The More Young People Use AI, the More They Hate It

#59

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 3:53 PM UTC

jdw64 wrote: post #58

mzi wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the past, a job that would have given me two months and paid $5,000 is now expected to be completed in two weeks for the same $5,000. So you have quadrupled your income? That seems like the opposite of a collapse.

Because of the nature of freelance work, jobs are not always steady. Most freelancers constantly worry that the work may disappear tomorrow. In my case, unlike contract freelancers who are hired for a fixed period, I usually work on a project-delivery basis. Of course, well-known programmers may be able to negotiate salary-like contracts, but that is not my situation. I think my earlier example may have been unclear.…

[deleted]

Re: The More Young People Use AI, the More They Hate It

#60

Post by dinfinity » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 3:54 PM UTC

isoprophlex wrote: post #20

anianz wrote: post #13

> Freystaetter and Gottlieb both say that instead of their own generation, they are more worried about Gen Alpha and other young people that come after them, who lose their chance to develop healthy relationships with technologies when they become mandatory and ubiquitous. I remember similar concerns from Millennials about Gen-Z with the Internet and social media. In the end the Internet and Social Media Gen-Z grew u…

I have three (gen A) kids, of which two are of the age to have opinions on this. They tell me I don't have a real job because I just tell the computer what to do, and I don't do the thing myself (to which I can't help but respond that they're absolutely right). If I try to spin them a bullshit story, they tell me how can that be true and maybe I got brainwashed by AI. Also they hate ads with a passion. If anything, I…

> If anything, I'm incredibly hopeful for newer generations. They'll probably mostly be fine, like most of us were.

The current state of the world begs to differ with "most of us being mostly fine". Critical thinking skills and the ability to make wise decisions among the various electorates seem to be in a incredibly shitty state.

Anecdotally, Gen Z-ers as a whole are definitely not better at this; they're easily swayed by flashy memes, TikToks and other forms of disinformation. Where younger people used to have a more society minded, leftist lean (before ultimately becoming jaded), they more than ever side with right wing populists from a young age. Not all of them, but a much larger chunk than before.