alt Hacker NewsI’m a young adult and I’m very hopeful for AI, my partner who is a similar age is very hopeful too. A couple evenings ago, I saw a rocket launch across the sky and last night I saw images of the far side of the moon taken by orbiting astronauts. This is to say I’m very hopeful for the future! I think young people are feeling the pressures of high taxes, high housing costs which driven up by overregulation, entitlements to retirees and H1B/immigrant cases driving down wages. I think this is what causes some young people to feel cautious about AI. The company I work for is constantly hiring fresh faced new graduates who use AI tools to enable higher productivity and reduce time performing data analysis. At the same time I see young people frustrated when their cars get broken into or when they get robbed and criminals are not held accountable. My take on this is that legacy media refuses to address these issues or plays them down and at the same time they amplify concerns about AI probably because AI is supplanting the reach and their rhetoric and reducing their ad share. I also see AI tools as a framework to promote equality and to uplift people, my example is that colleges and governments promoted a “learn to code” movement for people in non SWE roles, but with AI tools heavily helping with code generation there’s classes now that teach coding aided by AI because for most people coding is a means to an end (1) so there’s less pressure on people who are working and going to school to excel in these difficult courses and graduate on time.
1 - https://careertraining.smc.edu/training-programs/c-plus-plus...
Replies
> I see young people frustrated when their cars get broken into or when they get robbed and criminals are not held accountable
Yes people of all ages tend to be unhappy when crime happens to them. Not sure where you live but lowering taxes and government oversight is actually a bad way to improve taxpayer funded and government run law enforcement agencies. None of this has anything to do with AI though and young people can be angry about multiple things.
> At the same time I see young people frustrated when their cars get broken into or when they get robbed and criminals are not held accountable. My take on this is that legacy media refuses to address these issues or plays them down and at the same time they amplify concerns about AI probably because AI is supplanting the reach and their rhetoric and reducing their ad share.
Maybe it’s just the legacy media I consume, but petty crime is rarely if ever reported (television, newspaper, radio, etc) in my experience.
And I’m not sure how you would expect media institutions to address petty crime. I guess they could ask local leaders and local law enforcement about it.?
Older U.S. taxpayers approaching retirement will bristle at word combinations such as "entitlements to retirees" as they have put enormous capital, which can clearly be summed from their large stack of W2s, into Social Security. Also, there are large segments of "retirement age" people who simply can't afford to retire.
> pressures of high taxes
This is something I never see mentioned so I'm curious what brought it up. Are you personally paying a lot of taxes or so much that you can't afford other things or is this a thing peers talk about? Is this a state or federal thing?
It's quite interesting that your (presumably very representative) survey of young people has unanimously reported 'arbitrary amalgamation of bog-standard right-wing grievances' as the primary issue of our time
Ah -- you showed your hand there.
You should be careful saying things like "high housing costs which driven up by overregulation". It sounds like you're trying to frame bad economic news like it's the fault of a more liberal political party in the US.
High housing costs are just an effect of capitalism. It's supply and demand - as simple as that. If they were grass huts in downtown San Fransisco, they'd be just as expensive. "Overregulation" is a fallacy.
I think you're projecting.
- Taxes
- Overregulation
- Housing
- Immigrants
- Legacy media
This is literally a checklist of wealthy conservative old man issues.
Hah, I wish I had your optimism. I’m in the same boat re. the media and the pressing issues, but I just think AI is going to make things even more unaffordable for us, harder to find work, and used against us by governments who can afford the top models that might not even get released to the rest of us.
I saw the moon launch the other day, and in the past I would have been following and celebrating. These days I’m more preoccupied by the corruption in our government, including recent anti-democratic events (I’m not American).
> I see young people frustrated when their cars get broken into or when they get robbed and criminals are not held accountable.
How often are your peers experiencing these crimes? Assuming you're in the US based on your comments, crime rates are much lower now than when in the early 2010s when I was a young adult and quite hopeful despite thinking my job prospects were bleak and that I'd never be able to afford a home.