{"id":561094,"date":"2026-08-06T20:08:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T20:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/561094\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T20:08:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T20:08:11","slug":"ai-impacts-seen-in-high-youth-unemployment-figures-tech-expert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/561094\/","title":{"rendered":"AI impacts seen in high youth unemployment figures – tech expert"},"content":{"rendered":"

A tech expert says there are signs showing of AI’s impacts in the country’s high youth unemployment figures particularly around new graduates struggling to find jobs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And there are a whole stack of other reasons a big new report out Friday gives for stopping with the ad hoc approach to AI.<\/p>\n

On the streets of Wellington some people were worried AI would take their job, some weren’t:<\/p>\n

“I’m not concerned about my job because we actually use AI, which I’m quite enjoying.””Personally, no, but other people for sure.””I work in a medical practice as a receptionist. It’s not going to take long till they put a wee robot in there.””It’s catch-22. I guess there’s some big productivity improvements and there are going to be some hits.”<\/p>\n

But however you might feel about AI, overall the country’s doing it wrong, says the Human Rights Commission in a landmark new report out Friday.<\/p>\n

Senior advisor Sophie Bradwell-Pollak helped produce the report.<\/p>\n

“Ultimately New Zealand has a very light … approach that’s not based on human rights,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Because it’s looking at one part – so cutting costs and looking at AI in terms of efficiency and investment. [That] is only one small part of what we need to be looking at.”<\/p>\n

\"Sophie<\/p>\n

Sophie Bradwell\u2011Pollak\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b, Senior Human Rights Advisor (to the Chief Commissioner) at Te K\u0101hui Tika Tangata, New Zealand Human Rights Commission.<\/p>\n

Supplied \/ Sophie Bradwell\u2011Pollak\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b<\/p>\n

The report’s 100-plus pages argue the top priority is to establish an overarching AI infrastructure strategy anchored in human rights and Te Tiriti o Waitangi.<\/p>\n

It calls too for a new AI safety institute running a system for monitoring wins and harms from the machines.<\/p>\n

On jobs, the country could just look sideways, said Bradwell-Pollak.<\/p>\n

“Australia for example, the federal government a month ago released a report<\/a> looking at what jobs are most susceptible to AI interference or AI impacts and that would be a great starting point.”<\/p>\n

No one country led the way on a human-rights-based approach to AI, she said, but many were doing more than New Zealand.<\/p>\n

Futurist Frances Valintine agreed the one-track mind on AI just isn’t cutting it.<\/p>\n

“We are currently looking almost like through the lens of being afraid of missing out,” said the founder and chair of academyEX.<\/p>\n

Agentic AI – models that do not just generate content<\/a> but go out and do jobs and subcontract jobs to other AI agents – are currently setting things up for the arrival of the equivalent four million new highly intelligent “workers”. But without the country thinking through the broad consequences.<\/p>\n

“We’re sort of jumping in boots and all without sort of taking that helicopter view,” said Valintine.<\/p>\n

She’s just been speaking to 800 tech business leaders at the Revved summit in Auckland. One message there – and on Morning Report on Thursday – was that New Zealand must lean in to AI<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

AcademyEX founder Frances Valintine.<\/p>\n

academyEX<\/p>\n

But Valintine said the country must make its own path, like it did on going nuclear-free, and choose to partner with AI companies that aligned with NZ values.<\/p>\n

“I’ve had many conversations since I spoke … people are just saying, they’re all measuring it on a cost of a licence, how many tokens [how AI use is paid for] they’re using and how much productivity gains they’re making.<\/p>\n

“And I’ve had so many people saying, ‘I’ve suddenly realised … we’re not thinking about the consequences of how do we get middle-tier managers if we’re not hiring graduates at the same level anymore? How are we going to retain people if people are feeling unsafe and insecure in their jobs?'”<\/p>\n

There are early signs of AI impacts in this week’s persistent high youth unemployment figure, she added – and maybe a 2-to-3 year window to get the fundamentals right – so this ‘”absolutely” should make AI an election issue.<\/p>\n

Bradwell-Pollak agreed it was not too late for the political parties to step up.<\/p>\n

“They’re still coming out with their policies, we’re still meeting and engaging with MPs.<\/p>\n

“So it’s not too late. This is a topic that people are concerned with now. And also, you know, the [report’s] recommendations will endure past this election and hopefully with the new government.”<\/p>\n

The Human Rights Commission said Friday’s report was deep and technical with lots of expert input – but a simple signal of much more public engagement on AI to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A tech expert says there are signs showing of AI’s impacts in the country’s high youth unemployment figures…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546662,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-561094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}