{"id":508620,"date":"2026-04-02T08:28:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T08:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/508620\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T08:28:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T08:28:09","slug":"the-students-studying-ai-in-dublin-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/508620\/","title":{"rendered":"the students studying AI in Dublin \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Artificial intelligence<\/a> (AI) is increasingly changing workplaces and threatening jobs, but students of AI planning a career in the area are among those facing the most precarious of futures.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo I think my job will be replaced?\u201d asks computer science student Samuel Attila Zemes at the Tallaght campus of the Technological University Dublin<\/a>. \u201cNo, because I think you need people for the management of all of these resources.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Slovakian fourth-year student is not alone in being positive on the future in an uncertain time of rapid change. The UK\u2019s National Foundation for Education Research found last year that the number of tech jobs there had declined by 50 per cent over five years. <\/p>\n

The Irish Times is visiting the Tallaght campus to speak to students of AI about the prospect of them finding jobs with all the rapid changes that the technology is bringing to workplaces.<\/p>\n

More than 600 students are on undergraduate and postgraduate AI courses in Ireland including those at Tallaght. About 100 are pursuing a master\u2019s degree in human-centred artificial intelligence, a course intended to equip those entering the field with a knowledge of how the technology can be best utilised to benefit people. <\/p>\n

\"StudentStudent Mercy Igbinosun at the computer sciences department at TUD Tallaght. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw <\/p>\n

Aside from night students looking to upskill in their current jobs, most students at Tallaght seeking part-time work have seen first-hand how AI is changing the world of work.<\/p>\n

A couple of students tell The Irish Times how they struggled with the initial application stage for part-time jobs.<\/p>\n

Student Imran Bennekrela says CVs are scanned by AI in the recruitment process and there is a \u201cback and forth with AI checking for AI\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cBasically there are no more humans in the process,\u201d Bennekrela says.<\/p>\n

Ivan Deshko has submitted about 300 job applications. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018My four children are all using AI in various ways in their studies\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cHalf of them don\u2019t even respond,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

Both students found jobs with retailers, but only after somebody already working there mentioned them to managers.<\/p>\n

Adrian Donnelly says he secured an internship at the Dublin office of a major US financial company after directly contacting the manager charged with recruiting. <\/p>\n

\"AIAI has caused a surge in job applications, but student Oleksandra Danylenko has seen applicants’ CVs and was unimpressed. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw <\/p>\n

All students say AI has contributed to a huge increase in the number of job applications and made it hugely challenging to stand out. <\/p>\n

Oleksandra Danylenko from Ukraine works part-time in a flower shop and sees the CVs that come in from others. <\/p>\n

\u201cSome are ridiculous \u2013 it is really noticeable,\u201d Danylenko says.<\/p>\n

\"NicholusNicholus Magak says he has found that candidates making it to interview lack the skills they claim to have. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw <\/p>\n

Nicholus Magak, a tech worker in healthcare from Kenya studying for a master\u2019s degree in Ireland, was asked to hire his replacement and was taken aback at interviews by how many applicants possessed few skills they had claimed to have to get that far. <\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people had found the cheat sheet,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Internships are now a key component of courses, developed with employers, that offer students work experience that is otherwise hard to come by. <\/p>\n

Trayc Keevans, global foreign direct investment director at recruiter Morgan McKinley<\/a>, says employers are simply so swamped by technological change they lack time to mentor students.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0We should be very worried about AI taking over the classroomOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The wider jobs market is the greatest concern for the students. <\/p>\n

Most of about 20 undergraduate students who meet The Irish Times, many from overseas, say they want to work in Ireland, but think they have to go abroad to find jobs. Some believe AI is used as an excuse to cut staff at companies that might have previously over-hired or feel firms need to be seen to make payroll savings to justify their AI investment.<\/p>\n

Night students working in the area express concern for those coming behind them.<\/p>\n

Janca Vercuil, who has 20 years of experience of the tech side of companies and works for a semi-state company, does not believe there will be a need for as many developers in future because the work can be automated. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf the AI understands the question, it can write you code in any language much faster than a human can. You have to still oversee it but it can do a lot of the work,\u201d Vercuil says.<\/p>\n

Matthew Padden, an experienced manager, says he is beginning a new project using AI at the firm where he works; it is a project that would ordinarily have been contracted out to a team.<\/p>\n

He advises people looking for work \u201cto be at the intersection of as many Venn diagrams as you possibly can\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cBe able to talk about business, have the soft skills required to show people that you\u2019re not just a one-dimensional programmer,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone who thinks that they can just survive as an expert programmer … can forget about it because the code-inputting is just going to be automated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barry Feeney, head of the school of enterprise computing and digital transformation at Tallaght TUD, says courses have been changed, with input from the industry, to tackle challenges students face.<\/p>\n

But he suggests the tech revolution has a while to run yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cAI isn\u2019t going to do all of the things that people say it is yet \u2013 it\u2019s not there yet,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

They are trying to teach people about new tools to solve problems and \u201cnot how to be the old traditional coder\u201d.<\/p>\n

One of the department\u2019s lecturers, Maurice Martin, who spent 16 years in senior roles at Microsoft<\/a>, says opportunities should not be underestimated, with a \u201chuge gap\u201d in knowledge between those who design business strategy and those who build systems.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the past, your systems might have been 80 per cent human, 20 per cent tech; now maybe it\u2019s 50-50 and in the future it might be 90 per cent tech, but you\u2019re still going to need a lot of people to build those tech systems, to understand them, to validate them \u2013 that\u2019s a whole lot of new jobs,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a skill to understand how you can solve problems,\u201d says another lecturer, Fernando Perez Tellez. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt might be using AI or not, but you need to understand where you can integrate it to solve a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018You should freak out\u2019: Brussels grapples with warnings from the AI frontierOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Aidan Connolly, chief executive at Dublin-based AI and data analytics firm Idiro Analytics, says companies know they have to adapt because of the changing employment landscape.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be lay-offs and from a human perspective that\u2019s far from ideal, but being in business is a bit like being in The Hunger Games: you don\u2019t get a say in the rules, they are what they are and you have to compete,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\"AIAI is also creating jobs as well, says Trayc Keevans of Morgan McKinley <\/p>\n

Keevans, the jobs recruiter at Morgan McKinley, says tech graduates are definitely still needed but expectations are different and \u201cemployers are looking for stronger portfolios, better practical project work, communication skills\u201d.<\/p>\n

Major companies such as Open AI<\/a> and Anthropic<\/a> are all hiring graduates and experienced people \u201cso actually AI is creating employment as well\u201d, she says.<\/p>\n

Getting a first job and some experience is much tougher now, she says, as companies are swamped with the pace of change and there is not the same room as before for interns or new hires.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if you think of any time of high unemployment, there are still people employed,\u201d she says. \u201cSo it\u2019s going to be a question of having the mindset to be one of those who is employed.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018Humanity needs to wake up\u2019 to AI dangers, says Anthropic chiefOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly changing workplaces and threatening jobs, but students of AI planning a career in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,1119,733,4308,696,137405,53426,152696,178227,86,56,54,55,1908],"class_list":{"0":"post-508620","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-anthropic","10":"tag-artificial-intelligence","11":"tag-artificialintelligence","12":"tag-microsoft","13":"tag-morgan-mckinley","14":"tag-open-ai","15":"tag-tallaght","16":"tag-technological-university-dublin","17":"tag-technology","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom","20":"tag-unitedkingdom","21":"tag-work"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}