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Study found that young adults have grown less hopeful and more angry about AI

nytimes.com

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Re: Study found that young adults have grown less hopeful and more angry about AI

#81

Post by teachrdan »

angelgonzales wrote: post #65
wredcoll wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pressures of high taxes This is something I never see mentioned so I'm curious what brought it up. Are you personally paying a lot of taxes or so much that you can't afford other things or is this a thing peers talk about? Is this a state or federal thing?

I totally am paying a massive amount of capital gains taxes! I’m also saving up for a house which means every dollar I don’t contribute to a down payment becomes principal and interest on a mortgage which equals even more money out of my pocket. For instance if I pay $37k in capital gains one year (which I did) and if my principal on a $500k house is $200k at 6% and $1500 monthly payments I’ll have to pay $33k in int…

Some cursory googling shows you have to make capital gains of between $185,000 and $250,000 to have to pay $37,000 in capital gains tax. This is between three and six times as much as someone in their 20s will earn in a year. I think you need a bit more perspective of what it's like to be a young person outside the extremely well compensated tech sector.

Re: Study found that young adults have grown less hopeful and more angry about AI

#82

Post by danesparza »

angelgonzales wrote: post #26

[flagged]

Ah -- you showed your hand there.

You should be careful saying things like "high housing costs which driven up by overregulation". It sounds like you're trying to frame bad economic news like it's the fault of a more liberal political party in the US.

High housing costs are just an effect of capitalism. It's supply and demand - as simple as that. If they were grass huts in downtown San Fransisco, they'd be just as expensive. "Overregulation" is a fallacy.

Re: Study found that young adults have grown less hopeful and more angry about AI

#83

Post by roadside_picnic »

justonepost2 wrote: post #5
aurareturn wrote: post #2

If I'm Gen Z, especially someone who is graduating or just graduated, I'd be very angry at AI too. Even in our own organization, we've almost stopped hiring juniors and interns completely. We just leverage AI more and more. So I can understand how most Gen Zs feel threatened by AI. There are basically 2 groups who are loving AI: * Seniors who have deep knowledge so AI is just there to help make them accomplish their…

The "businesses" created are thin wrappers that will get absorbed by the model companies faster than you can come up with them.

This is a classic example of people misapplying the logic of the SaaS world to the AI world. If you're building software to sell, you're in trouble. The people that are finding success in this space are using AI to allow them to solve the problems they used to have to pay for software and hire people to solve.

All of the most promising companies I know today are very small and are leveraging AI to solve physical problems in the real world that just wouldn't be possible with so few people even a few years back.

Re: Study found that young adults have grown less hopeful and more angry about AI

#84

Post by kjkjadksj »

LPisGood wrote: post #46
dlev_pika wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at the last 3 years of AI startups, and it’s crazy how the big guys are folding use cases into their platforms - I cannot be the only one wondering what’s the point of developing a tool only for OpenAI et all to just incorporate the same eventually. There is no clear boundary as to what the business of the big ones is.

I feel like people said the same thing about Apple for years.

Apple was selling actual hardware though. Software doesn’t have that logistical moat.

Re: Study found that young adults have grown less hopeful and more angry about AI

#85

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

HappyHacker731 wrote: post #47
richwater wrote: post #8

AI is just another disruptive technology like the loom, the steam engine or the airplane. It will take time to adjust and some industries will go away and others will pop up. I think a lot of people are conflating two ongoing things: the emergence of AI and stagnant (if not recessionary) economies across the globe. It appears as if AI is resulting in so much more negative externalities but in reality if not for AI, w…

> we'd 100% be in a recession A little confused as to how exactly a handful of unprofitable companies are keeping us out of a recession? GDP is not the economy. We have been in a "recession" for a while now, not that that word even really means anything anymore.

How old are you? I hate to pull rank on people, but if you're an American who wasn't yet on the job market in 2008, you've never experienced a sustained recession and don't understand the comparison you're drawing. A recession feels much worse than "things cost too much and the world kind of sucks", and workers are affected as much as businesses and CEOs are.

Re: Study found that young adults have grown less hopeful and more angry about AI

#86

Post by mothballed »

wredcoll wrote: post #45
angelgonzales wrote: post #26

[flagged]

> pressures of high taxes This is something I never see mentioned so I'm curious what brought it up. Are you personally paying a lot of taxes or so much that you can't afford other things or is this a thing peers talk about? Is this a state or federal thing?

Taxes are pretty significant at the lower incomes. Not only are they paying 15-25% taxes after considering local, federal, state, and property taxes (even though federal are low) but whenever they want services from anyone in the upper quintiles they are also effectively paying the regulatory and tax burden of those enterprises since the customer ultimately assumes all the costs of the business.

Think for a second, if someone wants child care -- they must pay enough not only to satisfy the worker's basic needs but also the worker's income tax, business taxes, property taxes of the daycare, government mandated licensing and bonding, etc. None of those get recorded as 'taxes' the person contracting that service has paid, but really they are also paying those.

Given how little most of the lower pay workers have extra to work with, and how little they get in government services for what they pay, I don't think it's much a stretch for them to think taxes are holding them back. Being able open up saving even couple percent of income massively improves your financial safety and cushion at those brackets.

Re: Study found that young adults have grown less hopeful and more angry about AI

#87

Post by bluefirebrand »

bko wrote: post #67

Reminds me of the quote: No one goes there anymore, it's too crowded. These types of surveys are pretty much useless. Just go by people's revealed preferences. They're using the technology. They don't have to. I'm sure most teachers and schools would prefer them not to. Why do they have to use it? Have standards gotten higher in schools such that they will be left behind if they don't? Is there peer pressure to use i…

> These types of surveys are pretty much useless. Just go by people's revealed preferences. They're using the technology. They don't have to.

When you're constantly being force fed the narrative that you must use AI or be left behind, using it is no longer a revealed preference it is a survival mechanism

Re: Study found that young adults have grown less hopeful and more angry about AI

#88

Post by bogzz »

antonvs wrote: post #79
bogzz wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The loom, the steam engine, or the airplane did not cause "captains of industry" to publicly salivate over anticipating being able to fire their knowledge workers who invested time, money, and effort into becoming qualified for the jobs they're now constantly in fear of losing. The social contract is being broken. Being broken just on paper, just on the hopes that it can be broken for good.

Those captains of industry almost certainly salivated over the idea of not needing weavers etc. any more. Is the difference you're seeing just that they're doing that publicly now?

The weavers had a rough go of it for sure, but at least they did not have to spend 4 years of their early adulthood being intellectually challenged in a higher education institution, often going into debt, in order to become qualified weavers.

Re: Study found that young adults have grown less hopeful and more angry about AI

#89

Post by toraway »

enragedcacti wrote: post #62
angelgonzales wrote: post #26

[flagged]

It's quite interesting that your (presumably very representative) survey of young people has unanimously reported 'arbitrary amalgamation of bog-standard right-wing grievances' as the primary issue of our time

Their recent comment history also consists of complaining about vaccine mandates, gun control, and climate science research at NASA while praising funding cuts to higher education…

Re: Study found that young adults have grown less hopeful and more angry about AI

#90

Post by thankyoufriend »

bogzz wrote: post #33
richwater wrote: post #8

AI is just another disruptive technology like the loom, the steam engine or the airplane. It will take time to adjust and some industries will go away and others will pop up. I think a lot of people are conflating two ongoing things: the emergence of AI and stagnant (if not recessionary) economies across the globe. It appears as if AI is resulting in so much more negative externalities but in reality if not for AI, w…

The loom, the steam engine, or the airplane did not cause "captains of industry" to publicly salivate over anticipating being able to fire their knowledge workers who invested time, money, and effort into becoming qualified for the jobs they're now constantly in fear of losing. The social contract is being broken. Being broken just on paper, just on the hopes that it can be broken for good.

> The loom (...) did not cause "captains of industry" to publicly salivate over anticipating being able to fire their knowledge workers who invested time, money, and effort into becoming qualified for the jobs they're now constantly in fear of losing.

It absolutely did. Factory owners used their clout to put workers out of the job and then lobbied for military aid and capital punishment instead of negotiating with the workers. IMO, the only tactic for worker that has EVER had lasting success is solidarity through some form of unionization.

Read "Blood in the Machine" if you want to see what happened to the losers of the industrial revolution. The book does contain some fictional embellishments but that is explained up front, and noted when it comes up.

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