Jasmine Sun - The Youth's Love/Hate Relationship with AI

[upbeat music] Why are young people so hostile toward AI even as they use it every day? And what does that reveal about how people generally feel about technology and society? My guest today is Jasmine Sun, a writer and journalist covering the AI economy, whose work has shaped some of the most important debates about AI, work, and inequality. Here's our talk. [upbeat music] Welcome to "The Economics of Work." I'm excited to welcome Jasmine Sun, one of the most prolific writers and journalists on the AI economy. Jasmine, welcome to the show.

Thanks so much for having me.

So I gotta ask you, why do you think people hate AI, or young people in particular-

[chuckles]

... hate AI?

Oh, gosh, so, uh, so many reasons. It's been, uh, something I've been thinking a lot about, too. If I were to hypothesize, I think that a huge part of the reason young people hate AI is a question of economics, affordability, and people's-- young people's views of their economic prospects more broadly. Even before we were starting to think a lot about AI's impact on jobs in the early career labor market, we already had a sort of decline in trust in institutions in the U.S. I think young people believe that they need more money than previous generations did to lead a successful life. They have lower faith that they will be upwardly mobile, more successful than their parents. And of course, I'm talking about the U- United States in particular. Views are different in other countries. And so when you have a lot of these worries about rising costs of living, about declining affordability, around not feeling like institutions, whether governments or corporations, are gonna be there to guarantee you a better future, and those existing concerns are colliding with this massive new technology that's receiving tons of investment, and that the proponents of which are very clearly saying this technology is highly likely to eliminate a bunch of early career jobs, it seems pretty rational for a college student struggling to get a job to be f- fearful of or to be angry at AI. And then there's all the, like, visceral experiences that people have where you're in these classes and all of your classmates are ChatGPT-ing all of their problem sets and their essays, and maybe you don't feel that good about it, but if everybody else is doing it and you wanna get an A in the class too, you're gonna do it. Or you're submitting these AI-generated cover letters into these LinkedIn resume drop boxes along with 10,000 other AI-generated cover letters, and you know there's just an AI on the other end trying to filter through those because a human cannot filter through 10,000 AI-generated cover letters. And so people also feel, I think, on a visceral level, the ridiculousness of how AI and its capabilities have sort of really put pressure on existing cracks in the system, um, with the job market, with affordability, with inequality. And so in a way I find it somewhat rational for young people to be fearful of AI.

Yeah, it sounds like-- I mean, the, the picture you're painting is a very dark, dystopian picture of, like, what it's like to be a young person, and it totally resonates. I mean, I think there are