{"id":480577,"date":"2026-06-03T07:40:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T07:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/480577\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T07:40:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T07:40:18","slug":"more-harmful-than-helpful-young-people-sour-on-ai-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/480577\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018More harmful than helpful\u2019: Young people sour on AI \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Young people were promised artificial intelligence<\/a> would make them more productive, more creative and more employable. Many now worry it might make them less valuable instead.<\/p>\n

From software developers who fear being replaced to students who feel AI is hollowing out learning and creativity, a growing number of young adults say the technology is reshaping their lives in unsettling ways.<\/p>\n

In the US, roughly half of Gen Z \u2013 those born between 1997 and 2012 \u2013 reported using generative AI at least once a week. Yet 31 per cent said it made them feel angry, up from 22 per cent last year, according to a recent Gallup poll.<\/p>\n

Those findings were echoed by young people across three continents interviewed by the FT, some of whom declined to give their full name, who described a similar mix of dependence on and frustration with AI.<\/p>\n

Misha, 24, who recently completed a master\u2019s degree in computing at Imperial College London, said advances in AI had made his coding skills less valuable. \u201cIt feels like junior software developers are basically just micromanaging AI at this point,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

For many graduates, AI has turned job hunting into an arms race. Applicants use chatbots to generate ever more applications while employers deploy algorithms to sift through the deluge, and candidates find themselves navigating multiple rounds of automated interviews and assessments before ever speaking to a human.<\/p>\n

A recent study led by researchers from Stanford University found that on one popular \u201cgamified\u201d assessment platform, jobseekers would need to apply for at least 25 different positions to be almost certain of receiving at least one recommendation to proceed to the next stage of an application. Many graduates have described applying to hundreds of positions without having a single job offer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe world of job applications is broken\u201d, said Lucy, 24, who works in marketing at a current affairs magazine. She turned to approaching hiring managers in person and sending cold emails in the hopes of being acknowledged by a human.<\/p>\n

C\u00e9leste Collet, a 21-year-old studying for a dual degree between Sciences Po in Paris and the University of California, Berkeley, said while she was positive about AI\u2019s potential \u201chuge impact\u201d, she questioned \u201chow many jobs are going to be left in the future\u201d.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0The Irish priest behind the scenes of the Vatican\u2019s work on artificial intelligenceOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Collet added she used Anthropic\u2019s Claude chatbot to help structure and research her thesis, though she wrote the paper herself. She had previously \u201cloved\u201d doing the work on her own and felt the chatbot \u201ckilled the exercise\u201d but turned to it because of time pressures.<\/p>\n

Beyond the workplace and the classroom, many complained that AI made it harder to distinguish fact from fiction. Lucy said the spread of AI-generated images has given politicians plausible deniability when compromising footage of them emerges. \u201cWhen you see an image, that should be able to be used as concrete evidence. It isn\u2019t any more.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s bleeding across all aspects of the media,\u201d she said. \u201cYou just don\u2019t know what to trust.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eliza Castell, 25, who works for a British MP, said there had been an increase in politicians using phrases such as \u201cI rise to speak\u201d in the House of Commons, which OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT often uses when asked to write a speech for parliament.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cThere\u2019s this anxiety that if you\u2019re just using AI to do everything, are you not just proving your job can be done by AI?\u201d<\/p>\n

In the US, the backlash against the pace of technological advancement has been seen in university commencement speeches, where graduates have heckled speakers who have extolled AI.<\/p>\n

Ex-Google chief executive Eric Schmidt was met with jeers and boos by students at the University of Arizona as he spoke of the technology\u2019s capacity to \u201ctouch every profession, every classroom, every hospital, every laboratory, every person and every relationship you have\u201d. The backlash has spawned movements such as the Luddite Club. Founded in 2021, the group met weekly in Brooklyn\u2019s Prospect Park to read, paint, talk and listen to music, eschewing smartphones in favour of flip phones.<\/p>\n

The club has spread across the US and lists on its website chapters at universities and high schools from California to New Jersey, with a branch in Australia and another in Sweden. Members have staged rallies and protests against AI and big tech groups.<\/p>\n

Despite their misgivings, many young people use the technology and see its potential. Just one in five Gen Z members surveyed by Gallup said they had never used AI, roughly the same share as in 2025.<\/p>\n

Lucy said AI had been a boon for her younger sister, who suffers from issues with her short-term memory following an accident. Each day, she uses a voice-recording tool to turn her recollections into accessible summaries, which Lucy said had been \u201chugely supportive\u201d and improved her ability to learn.<\/p>\n

Soham, 20, an engineering student in Chennai, India, said use of the technology among his friends is widespread and increasingly acceptable, especially in sending emails. \u201cEarlier people would hide em dashes [a common feature of AI-generated text]. Nowadays people are more unapologetic. People have accepted AI is the norm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soham feared the impact of AI on India\u2019s vast digital services sector and the legions of tech workers it employs. \u201cThe government really doesn\u2019t understand how AI works. There is no department or leg of government actively ensuring it is on the right track.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others complained about AI\u2019s growing intrusion into everyday life. Matthew, 26, a sales representative in Texas, recalled someone telling a group at a birthday party to use a chatbot to write a celebration speech. \u201cIt felt like an unnecessary shortcut that took the soul out of things,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people use AI for thinking or creativity and seeing [those skills] disappear from people around me is discouraging … I think we\u2019ve gotten to the point where it has become more harmful than helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Young people \u201cfeel rubbed out\u201d, said Beeban Kidron, a child safety campaigner and cross-bench peer in the UK\u2019s House of Lords.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re being asked to embrace technology while being told there are no jobs, that the machines are taking over and five people in the world will rule the roost. They\u2019re going, where do I go, what do I do, who am I?\u201d \u2013 Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2026<\/p>\n

[\u00a0What are the jobs AI won\u2019t be coming for?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Young people were promised artificial intelligence would make them more productive, more creative and more employable. Many now…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332096,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,61,60,80,1962],"class_list":["post-480577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}