You would think that Gen Z, the generation that seems to embrace TikTok wholeheartedly, would love AI. However, that’s not the case. They seem to have a love-hate relationship with AI. What happened at the University of Arizona and other college campuses recently may be proof of that. But why is this the case?
You’re going to find out now!
Gen Z Likes Using AI, Sometimes
51% of Gen Zers use AI at least once a week. But Gallup recently polled about 1,600 US adults aged 14-29. What it found was staggering. 42% of them said that they were antsy about AI. The same percentage of teens and young adults reported feeling trepidation about AI last year.
CBS News stated that 22% of young people were thrilled about using AI this year. The trouble is that 36% of youth had that same feeling last year. About 31% of younger people were angry about AI, according to the Gallup poll.
To be sure, AI is useful for Gen Z, and all members of this cohort use it for schoolwork and academic tasks.
Why Does Gen Z Sometimes Hate AI?
Perhaps the most obvious reason behind Gen Z’s love-hate relationship with AI is that it’s displacing jobs, especially at the entry-level. Goldman Sachs estimates that AI will eliminate as many as 300 million jobs globally by 2030. A good portion of those will be entry-level positions.
Young people already struggle to find entry-level positions. It’s not unheard of for recent college grads to land a lower-paying position after having spent several months sending out hundreds of applications, going for a few dozen interviews, and being ghosted most of the time.
They are already anxious, and hearing that AI will make job searching even harder for them makes their blood boil.
Gen Z Didn’t Have a Say in Embracing AI
Gen Zers had a choice on whether they wanted to use social media platforms. They found those enjoyable and a great and healthy way to connect with like-minded peers. So, they wholeheartedly embraced social media.
The same applied to gaming platforms and technologies. However, AI went viral after ChatGPT came out in late 2022. The global tech elite pushed it on the world without asking anyone if they really wanted or needed it. Next came the AI gold rush where investors poured billions into any entrepreneur wanting to develop the next AI tools.
But AI was different from other technologies, that was where the problems started. For starters, AI tools and LLM models outright plagiarized work when they scraped the web for information. That would have been somewhat ok if the output had been used for purely personal purposes.
However, the output was often used to make money, and lots of it. That struck a raw chord with many Gen Zers. They’re intensely aware of social issues and value social equality and fairness. However, since AI is deeply embedded into the fabric of global society, there is little they can do to actively protest it.
AI Tools and LLM Models Wreck the Environment
There’s a reason why there’s intense pushback against data centers in America. They support AI tools and LLM models. Neither could operate without them. But the issue is that they can turn groundwater brown, they guzzle up tons of water, and use other resources.
Many communities have protested across America because data centers and AI have pushed their electricity bills way up. What’s worse is that local officials never even asked them if they ever wanted data centers in their backyards. The answer was that they didn’t.
AI Tools Have Been Known to Mess it Up!
When I say, “It” I mean information. AI tools hallucinate. They either get facts wrong or just make stuff up when they don’t know the answer. The trouble is that they do both confidently. I have first-hand experience of this. I once asked Claude to analyze web content with statistics from the FBI.
Much to my disappointment, it told me that the FBI had made its statistics up. I knew that couldn’t be right, so I got mad and cussed Claude out, literally.
AI Tools Are Like Candy
Candy rots your teeth, ruins your appetite and health, and increases your chances of getting diabetes when you’re older. AI tools rot your brain long-term. Studies have proven that.
MIT did a study last year where it tried to prove that AI is bad for your brain. Researchers put 54 adults into three groups and had them write an essay every month for four months. They had three things to use: ChatGPT, search engines and other research resources, and their brains.
Those adults who used ChatGPT or search engines had lower brain activity than those who wrote the essays using only their brains. Researchers let those who had used only their brains for the first 3 essays write the fourth essay. However, they restricted those who use only ChatGPT for the first 3 essays to using only their brains for the final essay.
Only 18 in the group submitted a completed final essay. Researchers concluded that those who wrote most of the essays using ChatGPT had significantly less electrical brain wiring than the other two groups.
They didn’t feel as though they really worte the essays and they couldn’t remember most of the quotes from the essays that they had written.
Gen Z is Not Crazy About AI
Why woud they be? It is a technology that they didn’t ask for or want. ChatGPT literally came out of nowhere and other AI tools soon followed. AI tools and LLM models effectively confused them by turning their worlds upside down and moving them way out of their comfort zones.
