Gen Z, AI, and the End of Western Privilege Will the Hungry Outcompete the Comfortable

Gen Z, AI, and the end of Western privilege. Yeah, quite interesting. So will be the hungry Gen Z out-compete the comfortable. This is the question that I want to explore today. Gen Z is the most AI fluent, AI fluent, generation yet, and they're also the most anxious about what it's gonna do to their lives, to their careers, to their opportunities. Surveys show high daily and weekly use, but mixed with rising anger, falling hope, and deep worry that AI is closing entry-level doors. This anxiety is landing just as the Western uni-polar moment ends and the old barriers. I mean, our timeline team, our timeline is just unbelievable. Yeah, the uni-polar moment ends and the old barriers that protected the Western living standards. They are eroding incredibly quickly at a rate that is just hard to get to get around. Now, those with the least to lose and the most hunger are already moving faster with the same tooling. Everyone's got access to the same tooling, right? China's AI and robotics are scaling back by an abundance of energy. This is the clearest example that I have to show you. We look at, let's have a look at today, what this means for. I'm gonna use, by way, of example, a 24-year-old Western graduate, how governments and individuals can adapt. What happens if the West tries to embargo non-Western AI, they will, they will. So, Gen Z uses generative AI more than older groups. But enthusiasm has dropped while anxiety sits at around 42%. That's a big number, 42% are anxious about what all this means. And anger is rising, people are getting super pissed off. So, employed Gen Z are more than three times as likely to see workforce risks outweighing benefits. That's how they perceive it, right? Roughly half to two thirds worry that AI will eliminate jobs or raise barriers for new entrants. Now, Quinnipack, they're polling. The data shows that 81% of Gen Z expect AI exposed roles to decline, basically. So, they see AI to decrease overall job opportunities. That's what they are seeing. So, that's a lot, right? 81% of Gen Z expect AI to decrease overall job opportunities. That's pretty disheartening, really. I don't believe it's true, but for them, it's incredibly negative. Early labor market data already shows sharper employment declines and AI exposed roles for workers aged 22 to 25 than for older cohorts. And at the same time, the Western economic and technological edge, that once upon a time, guaranteed higher wages and an much easier career start, there's under pressure from multi-polar competition. This global south, basically. So, let's have a look at hunger versus comfort. When barriers to Western privilege decline, the people with the lowest baseline, with the least cushion, they fight the hardest to master the new tools. They have the most hunger. Now, China, for example, scaling AI models and industrial robots as a pace that is enabled by fast energy capacity and considerable state coordination by the Communist Party of China. And a workforce that is still climbing that develop the development ladder, basically. Open source and low cost Chinese models already deliver higher performance at a fraction of the Western frontier costs. Western GNZ faces higher education costs, higher student debt, rising living expenses. And at the same time, they're just watching all these entry-level white collar roles basically disappear in front of their eyes. So, the combination creates a motivation gap. Those still building national wealth, treat AI as a ladder. Those defending existing privilege, they treat it as a threat. And that's the difference between the two groups. History shows that when a technology becomes widely available, the side with greater urgency and fewer constraints often captures the practical advantage first. We might be in the situation right now. Let's have a look at the ripple effects here, the adaptation and embargo scenario. Western governments can try to protect workers through, re-skilling through shorter work weeks, through stronger safety nets and targeted industrial policies. Stuff that can keep high value AI work on shore. Individuals can focus on skills, I mean, Christ. If you're in this bucket by the way, dust yourself off, pick yourself up and then get on to these tools. No matter what you do, become proficient in using these tools. I'm not talking about chat GPT. Maybe you use something like that to ask it. Look, this is who I am. This is what I do. This is what I love. That's probably a key thing. I love doing this sort of stuff. How can you help me tool up on using this AI tool set to be better and to be more productive and to give me an advantage in the workforce. So that when I apply for something or if I apply myself to a project, I come in there with these AI skills already honed. I know how to use the tools. I know how to actually leverage this stuff to be highly productive and to be 10 times better than I used to be without these tools. I was a 10th of what I am now. But with these tools, I'm 10 times better, 10 times faster, 10 times more accurate, 10 times more consistent, 10X. That's the difference here. I think that is the key for everybody who's in this bucket right now. I tell you what, don't mess about get on the tools. They'll be the best ever. You don't have to advocate for them. You don't have to be like, I'm pro AI, I'm against AI. You don't have to take a view on that. That's just politics and it's just noise. Just get on the tools and just be the best at using them so that when you go into a situation, if you're in a project, there's a choice, right? You go into a project and there's like eight people in the room and the program manager or a project manager or somebody who's looking after the thing, who's got the control of the budget and gets to tell people which direction to go, set the cool sense speed of the project. This person is looking around and going, right, who are the most productive people in the room? There's seven people over there that are opposing AI because it's upsetting them and they don't like it and they think that it's got hallucinates. You know, this is a great line. Oh, just hallucinates, make shit up. I mean, it did without a doubt. But those days are moved on and you need to move on too collectively. We all need to move on, understand what these things can do for us and make the most of it leverage it because the one person in that scenario who's taken the time to become professional in the tools and to be able to demonstrate how this works that person is gonna get all of the scope of that project. They are gonna get the responsibility and the accountability, but they will have the most scope in that project. I guarantee you, that's the way that this will work because the person who is responsible for the outcome, you know, to the executive or to the whatever, that person is thinking, shit, you know, I need it, the lover. And I need the people in this room. Who are the people in this room that are the most capable? And if you're an anti-AI and you say, I'm not using that those tools, they're really bad, you know, blah, blah, blah, hallucinate. And there's this one girl on the corner here and she's like, no, look, I used to stuff all the time. This is how I use it. You know, I use it, I run scripts to do all these tasks. I can replace 20, you know, the 20 people that used to sit behind screens just doing boring monotonous tasks. I can avoid us having to provision those people by using these new tools. Now, now you could argue, now what about those 20 people? There's no new jobs to those 20 people. No, you're quite right, another issue. There's other issues, but I'm just saying, if you're in this cohort, win, win, don't sit there and complain and say, bad, just win, will you? That's my opinion anyway. I think I'll be proven right. So, enforcement against, as we're going back to, you know, you know, like in bar goes basically, what can the west do to try and slow down the global south and bar goes strategy that makes non-western AI illegal or actively blocked? I think this will happen. They'll find a story, a narrative that works and they'll say, deep sec, Kimmy, Queen, Ali Baba, all these things. We're going to ban those because, you know, they, we think that they're dangerous and they're stealing our stuff and I don't know, whatever. Just, they'll come up with a great story. It'll be tested with a whole bunch of poles. They'll find the right narrative and then they'll place the narrative and they'll execute on that and they'll block. They'll be like the great firewall of China, but it'll be in the west and we'll block access to these dangerous tools. Yeah, I think that's going to happen. I think it's inevitable now because we cannot have these, these, this advantage, we're basically supporting. By us using these tools, we're supporting their development. So I think we'll be saying, no, no, no, no, no. I think that's what the West will result to. Will it work? No, I guarantee it will not, but they will be forced to block access to non-Western models. They already are of some degree. So as an developer, I work on systems and I use Simon with Google and Simon with YouTube and Simon with Apple and Simon with X and all these platforms. And to be certified to be able to use these features so that users can come in and sign in conveniently. In order to have access to those things, you have to pass a certain certification process for your app, for your service. And that process basically limits what AI tools you're allowed to use within your app. And so I'm basically limited to using Western tools already. So there's already an embargo. This is commercial embargo, but it's actually backed up by rules that have been set by the government. So that's one little example on what is coming. That is clear as data meet. This is absolutely coming. Yeah, but I think we'll end up with a large scale migration to the global south. I think that's probable at this point, too. And the couple of reasons why, it's mainly because the hunger, I think they have, for them, they have access to a tool that now gives them superpower skills. It means they can be better than most people in the West, until the West get off their ass and catch up with them. I think they've got this huge advantage. I think they're leveraging it faster than we are. So I hope we change. I really do. I hope that there's a massive push at a sovereign level to empower the people to use this incredible technology that we've been given. It's landed on our laps and a lot of us are complaining about it and we see it as a threat and we're anxious about it. I think that's the wrong move. I don't think you can, you can't hold back what's coming. This is all about embracing it in the most timely manner in the most part. I was going to say something else, but look, in the most timely manner, yeah, very difficult emotionally for people who are confused right now. I feel for you, I understand the situation you're in. It's confusing, it's disruptive. Your unique as a generation, you are quite unique. We haven't really had such a disruptive technology in the history of humans. Maybe the electricity was probably a big one, lighting, having a light on in the house and having the wireless was probably a big one. When the internet arrived in the 90s, that was quite a big one, not as big as this, though. Because the internet was very powerful because it gave you an advantage. You had the ability to communicate and to share and to research and these sorts of things. They were quite good, but just not at the degree that AI does. This is something completely new. It is radical and it's disruptive. So that's how I feel about it. I thought it's here that because it does have geopolitical implications that the global south versus the west, I think it's really important. I think that could be quite disruptive if we end up just being really negative about the whole thing and not embracing it as fast as peers in the global south. Specifically India. India is full of developers, right? It's just top quality, really high quality developers and China as well. Very, very smart people in China and India. Brilliant, absolute genius level. So now they have been given access to tooling that they can run on a small laptop, a cheap little laptop, and they can have superpowers. And all I'm saying is we need to compete. Don't just sit back and think we've got this privilege because you'll find that we actually don't have a privilege and we actually just need to be working harder and faster than they are. So that's my advice for what it's worth. But disruptive, eh? Boy, tell you what, disruptive technology, nothing like it before, I think, just nothing like it. It's exciting, though, really exciting for what is coming in the main one for me is health. Health is the biggest one by far. That is by far going to be the most transformative when you apply AI to health and math and physics. When you apply those three subjects, you end up with some really major fundamental breakthroughs that are not expected. They are coming fast. I'll tell you what, they're coming fast. Yeah, so, look, our timeline, we did really well because we get to witness all this, right? It's incredible. I mean, it's just exciting. It's invigorating. It's surprising, but spiritual for those GNZ that are being just incredibly disrupted right now. If you were in that cohort, I feel for you. I think it's really disruptive, but hang in there because if you look at the positive side of this, the advantage that you can have in your life, if you pick these tools up and become a master, master these tools and the application of these tools and what you love, if you do that, look, I'm highly confident that you'll do extremely well. You'll do very, very well. But set aside the natural prejudice that your cohort has for this technology, they will be, they'll all be saying, it's terrible, it's that, the other, they'll be looking at the negative and they'll be very anxious about it. You just saw the numbers, right? That quintupec poll is, that's how people are feeling right now, but you've got to put distance between that. They grew, they grew to think at the moment and how negative that is, put some distance between that and what you do, yeah, dust yourself off, pick yourself up, get on the tools, get to work. I hope you review our team. I hope you have a great day, cheers, bye.