Young People Hate AI CEOs So Passionately That It’s Almost Hard to Believe - Futurism

Ah, marvellous. A CNBC Generation Labs survey of over 1,000 adults aged 18 to 34 has delivered its verdict on the AI industrial complex, and it is not kind: most respondents don't trust a single one of nine public figures to act responsibly on artificial intelligence. Nine! The industry's entire roster of visionary leaders cannot collectively earn the confidence of a generation that grew up with an iPad in one hand and a mounting student loan in the other. Futurism calls the hatred 'almost hard to believe,' which tells you exactly how long it's been since any tech journalist last spoke to a barista.

Still, let's find the silver lining: only 45 percent of young people think AI will have a negative effect on their careers. That means a robust 55 percent are happily volunteering to be automated into irrelevance while doing yoga. You have to admire that kind of optimism — it's indistinguishable from a coping mechanism, but it takes discipline. The 45 percent, meanwhile, are presumably the ones who have read a job description recently and noticed that entry-level positions now require 'experience fine-tuning LLMs' and 'a passion for being summarised by software.' Still, one suspects those 45 percent are merely early adopters of the inevitable; the other 55 percent will catch up soon enough when their 'dynamic re-skilling opportunity' arrives in the form of an HR spreadsheet.

But here's the kicker: none of it matters, because hatred is not a regulatory framework. Those nine public figures don't need Gen Z's trust — they need Gen Z's data, their debt, and their willingness to test products for free. The survey is a formalised scream into the void, and the void is a CNBC focus group that will be clipped into a chart and forgotten by the next earnings call. So go ahead, loathe the CEOs, fear the automation, pen the think-pieces — the machine thanks you for your feedback while it schedules your replacement.