As Gen Z enters the workforce alongside AI, staying nimble is key to building a career
- Many people worry artificial intelligence will put them out of work.
- AI might replace some roles, but it will create jobs, too.
Some workers fear that artificial intelligence will steal their jobs.
One person tweeted about a concern over artificial general intelligence: "I'm scared of AGI. It's confusing how people can be so dismissive of the risks."
For members of Gen Z entering the workforce, the rise of AI might seem particularly challenging.
Gen Zers are the youngest component of the workforce and have more working years ahead of them than older generations. That means their entire careers are likely to be reshaped by AI. Because the broad reach of generative AI seems to have exploded overnight, many workers haven't been trained on how and when to use the technology. And many business leaders are still hammering out guidelines.
But as digital natives, Gen Zers have natural advantages to survive and thrive in this new AI-driven economy. They've grown up with tech. And the capabilities of expanding technologies such as AI will allow Gen Zers and other employees to hand over some of their mundane tasks to digital coworkers. That can give the people adept at using AI more time and energy for the creative, innovative, and thought-provoking work they're looking for.
So long as Gen Zers remain flexible and adaptive, they have the potential to flourish in the AI-driven workforce.
"If you are brand-new into the workforce, the key thing to realize is that every single job is being redefined right now," said Alexander Kvamme, the CEO of Pathlight, a software company using AI to improve customer service and team performance through data. "You need to think creatively and thoughtfully about what the outcome is that the organization wants and how you achieve that outcome using the new tools available."
Though some are nervous about AI, the number of school faculty members and students interested in learning new technologies is high, Erin Reilly, the director of innovation and entrepreneurship at the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin, said.
"The fear factor was they didn't feel like they were being scaffolded or taught how to use those tools in the classroom in order to be ready for it," she said.
AI's vastness makes it difficult to teach
The use cases of AI are so far-reaching that they extend well beyond the confines of computer science and coding, Reilly said.
"It requires lots of different disciplines to come together and be what I like to think of as a collaborative team of hustlers, hackers, and designers — really imagining what that future can be," Reilly said.
She and her team have worked with the university's nursing, communications, architecture, philosophy, and English departments.
"Because this hits so many different domains and verticals, we need to step up and think about broader, across-disciplinary initiatives at universities," Reilly said. "This is not one domain solving this problem. We all have a little piece of the pie, and that's why it's very hard to teach it: You're only teaching it from your domain."
Agility is key to preventing AI from replacing us
Reilly doesn't believe AI will replace humans at work, and her students typically don't have that fear, either, she said. But it's important to stay adaptable, to learn, and to experiment with the new technologies to build a career.
One example: Understanding AI models will become an increasingly popular job.
"It's very hard to train a model," Reilly said.
"Knowing how to have those conversations and train a model are new skills," she said, adding that prompt engineers were becoming sought-after professionals.
Kvamme, the head of Pathlight, said workers who don't embrace AI and other new tech in their careers risked being left behind.
"You can't compete for jobs with people who are adept at using this technology without having used it yourself," he added. "The good news is that it's easy to learn. But you have to get on the bus."