- AI is preventing Gen Z workers from getting entry-level jobs
- Many AI agents can perform tasks typically performed by new workers.
- Meta and Salesforce AI Executive Clara Shih Wants to Help Using AI
Generation Z workers who have spent the last two decades training for a world in which they are no longer allowed to use their skills are finding it increasingly difficult to enter the workforce.
Clara Shih, former AI executive at Meta and Salesforce, has seen this firsthand. He saw his best talent defeated by AI agents time and time again. “At that moment I knew nothing would ever be the same,” he said. Fortune. “You feel radicalized in that moment when you see it working.”
Now, it’s helping to equip Generation Z with the skills needed to survive in a world dominated by AI. “I realized that the only way to help people keep up with AI was to give them AI tools,” he explained. “Because if you use the traditional ways… it’s just not fast enough to keep up with how fast AI is advancing.”
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Entry-level radicalization
American citizens are facing one of the largest labor market disruptions in recent history, with thousands of people losing their jobs due to AI replacements and new entrants to the labor market finding that the skills they have acquired through their education are no longer relevant.
To make a living, many Gen Z graduates are turning to alternative ways to earn money, including informal work, or returning to education to learn vocational skills less threatened by the rise of AI.
To help Generation Z find their place in the modern world, Shih has created a nonprofit, New Work Foundation, along with a consumer-facing brand, Dear CC, that helps job seekers find work in their specialty sectors using AI.
The Dear CC site displays a message on the front page: “You did the work. You got the diploma. The economy moved. This is not your fault, but it is your future, and you can own it.”
Sentiment about AI was once very optimistic, with many hoping that it would help solve problems, not cause them. Nearly half of Gen Z surveyed in a recent NBC poll said they want to live in the past, and some reference AI as a specific reason for their feelings. More broadly, another NBC poll found that nearly half (46%) of registered American voters have a negative view of AI.
Other surveys, including a Checkr survey, have found widespread fears about the effects of AI, with 79% of respondents concerned that if their company adopts AI, it would result in pay cuts.
There is also growing opposition to building data centers that AI depends on to handle its workload, and a growing number of people, including political leaders, calling for greater protections for AI development.
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