CHARBONNEAU – The agony and hope for Gen Z
AI-generated image of brain. (Image: Pixabay.com)
ON THE SURFACE, things look bleak for twenty-somethings. But scratch the surface and the future for Gen Z holds promise.
They followed the advice of their parents and obtained liberal arts degrees in preparation for well-paying jobs.
But with the advent of AI, the jobs are not there.
Liberal arts degrees are great at preparing you for life. However, they are not the first step on the ladder to well-paying jobs that they once were.
Degrees in STEM, and healthcare are, as well as apprenticeships in the trades.
AI performs best in jobs that are routine, ones that were traditionally entry-level graduate roles; things like drafting emails and reports, basic data analysis such as spreadsheets.
However, AI is weak in making final decisions. It’s poor at understanding political, legal, or ethical nuance. And as for where does the buck stop, how can a nebulous AI own up to decisions and be held responsible?
AI displaces tasks, not responsibility.
The future promise for young workers is in the skills that AI can’t do and where AI is weak. They need to learn how to use AI as a tool, not a crutch.
Skills learned from liberal arts degrees, such as critical thinking, are a good start for further training. Here are some of the future jobs, according to ChatGPT:
Prompt Engineers They serve as “translators” between human intent and machine logic. They specialize in designing and refining large language models to ensure AI generates high-quality, accurate, and safe outputs.
They are increasingly essential in marketing, finance and legal services.
AI Ethics Analysts They act as the “moral compass” of an organization, ensuring that AI systems are developed and deployed fairly and transparently. They navigate the complex intersection of technology, law, and philosophy.
Liberal arts degree holders have a good start with philosophy, sociology, law, or public policy.
Machine Learning Operations Technicians MLOps Technicians bridge the gap between experimental and reliable systems. While data scientists build models, MLOps professionals deploy and maintain them at scale.
MLOps Technicians monitor for “data drift,” where the model becomes less accurate as real-world data changes.
Another area that seems bleak for Gen Z is health.
Historically, each generation born in the 20th century saw steady increases in average life expectancy compared with the one before, largely due to public health and vaccines.
But for Gen Z, that increase may have plateaued. Increases in type 2 diabetes and sedentary lifestyles appear to lower life expectancy.
Being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes at age 30 can reduce a person’s life expectancy by as much as 14 years compared with people without diabetes.
Sedentary lifestyle and low overall activity leads to a higher risk of chronic disease and early death.
Younger adults who become obese face dramatically higher risks of premature death — nearly double the risk compared to peers who remain at healthy weight.
However, while increases in lifespan may not be as dramatic as the past, innovation in medicine, disease prevention, and health policy may control the negative effects of a sedentary lifestyle.
And declines in heart disease and cancer survival will increase lifespan.
The future looks brighter for Gen Z than many doomsayers project.
David Charbonneau is a retired TRU electronics instructor who hosts a blog at http://www.eyeviewkamloops.wordpress.com.
ArmchairMayor.ca 
The infantilisation of the Western educational system, the primary that has become the nursery, the secondary that has become the primary and the tertiary (university) that has become the secondary reveals it. A doctorate is now really no longer very meaningful, for children are told that they are geniuses just for being able to recognise the letters of the Latin alphabet, some never do until they are in grade 8. This degeneration has produced an infantilised society, as is clearly visible from the level of politician, educators and journalists in particular, but it is everywhere visible in the illiteracy and innumeracy of contemporary Western societies. Little wonder that we have come to see Nazis as “freedom fighters” and salute them in parliament. They call for a public discussion in a society where everyone has an opinion and that passes for evidence without discussion, where the ruling structures and the media reduce everything to self-satisfied flaunting with insults rather than policy and disqualifications, unless we spread the official narratives then we get a Nobel Prize.
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Most college education is a scam, glad you realized that Mr. C.
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A BA is the first step for lawyers, psychologists and PR consultants. It’s likely our dysfunctional society will need many of these positions in future–even more than now.
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Young people should read Nuremberg. to avoid electing fascists and people that admire fascists like the Americans. This will automatically increase their life span.
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