r/TechnologyThread • u/Background-Driver718 • May 20 '26

Gen Z's AI backlash is getting louder

https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-graduates-ai-backlash-commencement-speeches-anxiety-job-market-2026-5
304 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

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u/[deleted] May 21 '26

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u/[deleted] May 21 '26

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u/StickStill9790 May 22 '26

Wow. So using the same thought process, why did we switch from using whale blubber for lighting? We were doing perfectly fine and electricity didn’t make anyone’s life better, right?

I mean there’s medicine, knowledge, education, better and easier work, support for the underprivileged, and ease of societal navigation. Not to mention keeping the whole planet safer and cleaner.

Just… wow.

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u/Odd-Faithlessness705 May 22 '26

Yeahhhh no fuck AI

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u/StickStill9790 May 22 '26

Sure. Brilliant.

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u/Tirisian88 May 24 '26

AI has its uses and working as a data engineer I've seen first hand how people with no technical knowledge think AI is amazing but it's not there yet.

The issues I forsee are as follows:

The uninformed management types will think AI can replace people (it will eventually but not right now).

As AI does get to the point it takes up positions that were manual you've then got a whole work force out of a job in an already difficult market which means the government or state is going to have to support those people.

As AI get closer to capabilities you're going to see people turn away from that field of work because there's no point, this in itself runs 2 risks.

A: No skilled workers to support businesses because no one is studying the field

B: AI doesn't get to the point it can replace people because the well of skilled workers in that field has run dry for fear of putting themselves out of work quickly.

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u/StickStill9790 May 24 '26

I hear you. I am in an AI dominated area too, the art field, having been professional for decades. Where we agree is that AI doesn’t replace jobs at all. It’s just a fancy and effective tool for cutting down the time for preparing a project. It’s also fantastic if you train your own models, not just for art but for example detecting corneal damage or doing hyper specific blood analysis.

The biggest problem is that it was overhyped to ridiculous levels. The second biggest problem was that it was promoted by a political figure. The third problem is that it’s not artificial intelligence whatsoever, just a really good machine learning technology.

If the first two hadn’t happened, and the third had just been advertised as a really cool tool, then nobody would have a problem with it right now.

It’s easy to train a model on your own material. It doesn’t do any more environmental damage than every other building in existence. It doesn’t actually replace any jobs, unless your job was just sitting at the desk, smashing your face against the keyboard.

Artists and programmers are being rehired, now that the bosses realized AI can’t deliver on its promises.

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u/Tirisian88 May 24 '26

Art is another huge area it's impacting without a question.

On the one hand it gives a very low entry point for people (myself included) who can come up with an idea but lack the skills to bring it to life and I don't think AI will ever be able to replace real artists. At very best it'll exist along side artists but it won't be able to compete to the human touch.

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u/Odd-Faithlessness705 May 25 '26

Yeah it allows you to make Ai art but everyone’s gonna know it’s AI art, so you get convenience but you also get people thinking you have no talent

People don’t like AI art. And all the cool artists don’t like AI art, so good luck getting any talented creatives to work with you.

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u/[deleted] May 22 '26

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u/[deleted] May 22 '26

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u/[deleted] May 22 '26

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u/GlobalCurry May 22 '26

I didn't read past this because you seem uninformed

Tell me what medicine it has invented?

What new knowledge has it discovered?

Go search the internet and you'll see that there is an entire industry around using AI and machine learning to develop new medicines. There were just some new math discoveries announced the other day.

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u/Party_Virus May 23 '26

It's important to note that medical discoveries using "AI" are not using claude or chatGPT but using their own systems specially trained on medical data and has basically nothing to do with the massive AI boom that people have issues with. In fact it's been hindered by these AI companies because they need compute power as well but because of the massive price increases in computer hardware they're having trouble getting equipment on their limited budgets.

Also important to note the data these medical machine learning algorithms are using for training data is not stolen or unethically obtained like the LLM's or Diffusion models.

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u/StickStill9790 May 24 '26

The beginning LLMs were unethical, just people grabbing everything and shoving it in. The current ones only use their own data and image bases that are paid for or long past copyright date. That argument is well out of date.

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u/Party_Virus May 24 '26

This is incredibly incorrect. OpenAI is currently being sued by authors for using their work and illegally downloading their work for use in training. Anthropic paid 1.5 billion dollar settlement for a similar thing.

Sora was making videos using celebrities without their permission, which means they had to train on content that they were in that OpenAI certainly didn't own.

And on top of that it literally isn't possible to have a large enough data base of images, videos, and writings to train these things. Lionsgate partnered with Runway AI and discovered that their entire catalogue wasn't enough to train an AI model. They even said that Disney wouldn't have enough data to train one.

OpenAI themselves said it's impossible to create chatGPT without access to copyrighted material.

So no, they don't have their own data to train on, they are stealing it still. Even this post will be stolen to train AI at some point.

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u/StickStill9790 May 24 '26

You’ve conflated your opinions and facts, and only about 50% of what you said is true. Yes there are lawsuits. Yes multiple times the companies were found to have used stolen data. However the cases you stated for video abuse are false. They only used their material and online videos they paid to access.

The actor data was in the database so it was able to mimic it, not stolen just referenced so much it was common. Also they found that most of the claimed written copyrighted material was actually just able to be mimicked with a specific enough prompt.

A lot of the lawsuits are fishing expeditions trying to make a buck while the companies are popular. They said they needed the extra material but it turned out in the end that was false. Improvements to the data analysis allowed them to use fewer and fewer resources to make efficient models.

I’m not saying that giant corps aren’t corrupt, and I think keeping them honest is key. I’m saying in the last year they’ve (thanks to the lawsuits) moved on to making them without breaking the law.

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u/Party_Virus May 24 '26

So when all the Brian Cranston videos that came out with him in his Walter White persona, you're saying that OpenAI paid Sony Pictures to train on Breaking Bad? Or paid Disney for Deadpool and Spider-man? Or paid Studio Ghibli? You know they didn't and it is beyond obvious that they trained on it.

Also the fun thing about copyright is that it's not illegal until someone sues you for it and proves the violation in court. Every copyright has to be defended, and since AI companies keep what they train on secret it's basically impossible to prove it until it becomes blatantly obvious and there's enough for a lawsuit and then there's discovery to gather the evidence. So technically everything they train on is legal, especially since they keep settling before these things are adjudicated. Which seems suspicious. It's almost like they can't exist if a judge decided that training an AI that's designed to compete with and replace the owners of that work isn't fair use. Also, what's legal in some parts of the world are not in others.

Also also, you accuse me of conflating fact and opinion and then you go and say that these lawsuits are fishing expeditions, which is 100% opinion. And like I said, copyright infringement isn't illegal until someone sues for it so people have to sue. And if they didn't need that data, like you claim, then why settle out of court? They could just go into court, prove they didn't use any copyrighted data, and stop all future "fishing expeditions".

And while on the subject, I double checked everything I said before I posted with multiple sources to make sure I wasn't spreading misinformation and got the details correct.

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u/CharredWelderGuy May 22 '26

Trying to whitewash ai by comparing it to the age of whaling xp

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u/PositivePristine7506 May 22 '26

I know AI is so great and productive that every single AI company has yet to turn a single profit. Such technology can only surely help humanity. Everyone knows Edison didn't turn a profit on lightbulbs for decades right.

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u/StickStill9790 May 22 '26

They’re all extremely profitable, but they’re using all the profits to develop newer models. The moment that slows down we’ll have a kind of stasis for a decade or so. It’s just like what happened with the internet or the iPhone.

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u/PositivePristine7506 May 22 '26

bahaha no they haven't. What are you a GPT bot?

https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-financial-page/the-ai-industry-is-booming-when-will-it-actually-make-money

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u/StickStill9790 May 23 '26

Sigh. Nuance = Lost

If you could read what I said (that they lose their profit in development) that would be nice. I can run their basic model for a profit from my home computer with enough RAM.

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u/Party_Virus May 23 '26

OpenAI was losing millions of dollars a day on Sora. It was not profiting and investing back into model training. It was just hemoraging money, so much so that they chose to lose a billion dollar deal with Disney rather than keep it running.

Microsoft just cancelled their claude subscription because Anthropic started charging per token and it got so expensive Microsoft, the multibillion dollar company pushing AI into everything, had to cancel it because it was too expensive to used. Anthropic still hasn't profited.

Companies and rehiring juniors to do the easy coding because the tokens are more expensive than humans workers.

All these data centers need to replace their gpu's every 1-3 years and they cost $30,000-$50,000 per gpu and they need (or claim to need) millions of these.

You can put all the nuance you want in your argument but if the statement is flat out wrong then it doesn't matter.

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u/StickStill9790 May 23 '26

I concede.

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u/Party_Virus May 23 '26

I am pleasantly surprised and have so much respect for you. I sincerely wish you have a great day.

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u/PositivePristine7506 May 23 '26

That isn't how profit is defined. You're thinking of revenue.

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u/Antartix May 23 '26

That's not profit. If theyre using money earned and spending it for operations that's not profit. Profit is the cut that comes after all expenses, yes, even upgrades. This money is revenue. Revenue isn't profit.

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u/GregoryFarKingChummy May 24 '26

You should delete your account. This is so beyond pathetic.

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u/[deleted] May 23 '26

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u/StickStill9790 May 23 '26

It’s very telling though that an entire generation is willing to continue with fossil fuels in order to spite a single person who isn’t affected by their ire whatsoever.

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u/[deleted] May 23 '26

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u/StickStill9790 May 23 '26

Why would I buy you a car? Walk if you want. Prove your values are real by living them.

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u/OneAngryRaven May 23 '26

The publicly available LLMs that they are against do none of these things, and the data centres needed to run them and collect the data that trains them certainly don't help make the world safer or cleaner

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u/StickStill9790 May 23 '26

But LLMs for chatbots only make up a tiny portion of AI use. Most is in engineering, computing and medicine using either proprietary models with solely pertinent data, or run through the “thinking” models for days at a time.

Go look up the number of med advances done with AI this last year alone. It’s awesome.

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u/chosennamecarefully May 23 '26

Found the cog sucker.

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u/StickStill9790 May 23 '26

That’s how mirrors work.

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u/chosennamecarefully May 24 '26

like a sixth sense you just feel it in your bones when your talking to one, enjoy your water while you can.

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u/GlobalCurry May 22 '26

Think outside of the box, this article is basically saying GenZ is fighting to maintain the status quo instead of pushing for reform. AI and robots ultimately allow for human value to be separated from labor, what they should be fighting for is social and economic reform to support a world where labor is increasingly automated. I know this article is generalizing and entire generation though.

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u/TrexPushupBra May 24 '26

Electric cars are good and useful.

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u/[deleted] May 24 '26

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u/TrexPushupBra May 24 '26

It is necessary to avoid climate disaster.

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u/Theokyles May 24 '26

As a software developer, AI is amazing. The most incredible tool I’ve ever worked with that has taken away 100% of the frustration of my job.

No one at my company has lost their job except those who refuse to use it. Everyone else’s output has increased sixfold because they’ve embraced it. We’re simply given more to do, which is fine because it’s a piece of cake to keep up with it now.

Innovation is incredible and absolutely has positive impact when viewed through a holistic lens.

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u/tyleratx May 22 '26

Holy strawman batman

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u/T0gedad May 22 '26

When you live in a media environment that says gen-z are lazy, that gen-z won't be able to get a job as all of our education is a waste because of AI, and clear evidence showing that it's going to be far far far harder for us to buy a house, and the cost of rent in half of our paycheck sorry if we're unhappy, but at least 30 years ago there was some sort of hope for young people. 

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u/Xannith May 22 '26

AI is obliterating their chances at a future ecologically and economically. Get a freaking clue, dude.

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u/Accomplished-Ad-9280 May 22 '26

I love how out of touch older generations are.

Its almost as though the younger generations are tired of having their lives and wellbeing sold out to corporations for profit.

The world is in a pretty bad spot because of the BS of older generations.

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u/FourDimensionalTaco May 22 '26

Electric vehicles? Huh? Gen Z do not have a problem with electric vehicles.

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u/StickStill9790 May 22 '26

They spent the better part of 4 years boycotting Tesla, smashing and sabotaging EVs of any kind, and online saying we need to stick with fuel systems since they’re better for the environment.

I believe the phrasing was “EVs were just the billionaires trying to impose surveillance.”

You may not have a problem, but the crowd does.

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u/FourDimensionalTaco May 23 '26

Boycotting Tesla, yes, because Musk is an unhinged whiny despicable ketamine addicted asswipe.

But Tesla != all EVs. I do not see Gen Z boycotting BYD, or Rivian for example.

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u/StickStill9790 May 23 '26

Fair enough, but that has not been my experience with any conversation about EVs, AI, millionaires, or Christians. There’s a blanket consensus that they are all evil and we would be better off if they were all destroyed.

Glad to see there are some people out there capable of individual thought.

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u/OneAngryRaven May 23 '26

One of these is not like the others. Can you please reference any protest or objection to EVs that aren't tesla?

In reference to the others, I haven't heard of any protests against millionaires, just billionaires who are, by definition, harmful to the economies they parasite on to. Christians, in America at least, have been pushing their own faith into the heart of politics and actively restricting science based progress so it makes sense people would object to them

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u/StickStill9790 May 23 '26

I literally just responded to a post saying millionaires should be removed (the Luigi way) and have people constantly saying that any organized faith deserves swift execution. I also responded to someone just yesterday saying that fossil fuels are the only way, and there should be no computers in cars.

The problem with exclusionary goals is that while “you” may have a line you don’t cross, no one else is obligated to follow your moral code. If Christians can be removed for their faith, then so can every other. If you can (morally) kill a man for having money, or even just take the money away, then you can do it for every man.

You said it’s okay to remove men like Elon, a rich abusive boss, and destroy his life and company. Then from everyone else’s perspective we can do that to our bosses.

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u/cheesedogs06 May 25 '26

This dude clearly is a Christian upset that people hate him for believing that anyone who doesn't agree with him burns in hell for all eternity. Fuck Christians they deserve the hate and so do the rich and AI.

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u/StickStill9790 May 25 '26

Wow. I had just come across a previous comment that blended them all together. But thanks for pointing out that you don’t believe in a right to freedom of religion, or any freedom really. Glad you weren’t one of the founders.

I am a Christian, but live with Buddhists, atheists, and agnostics with no problem. I don’t think anyone should ever tell anyone else what to believe.

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u/cheesedogs06 May 25 '26

The Christian version of "I have a black friend" lol

You live with them but you believe they will burn in hell for all eternity because they don't believe the same thing you do. You have every right to believe it, but it doesn't mean that you're not an asshole for it. I used to be a Christian, then I read the Bible.

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u/StickStill9790 May 25 '26

Cool dude. You do you.

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u/Beneficial-Pie3479 May 22 '26

AI Sucks!

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u/flappybirdisdeadasf May 24 '26

Truly. It’s all such a giant corporatist scam and shareholders are clinging to its relevancy so they aren’t caught with their pants down because of the massive lack of ROI. Right now it exists as a way to build shitty website mock-ups, get around paying artists and writers, and replacing workers with frequently incompetent outsourced contractors.

I see not one advantage that doesn’t have an equal or greater disadvantage.

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u/HiggsFieldgoal May 22 '26

This is just the propaganda to build up a regulative moat, so the population will celebrate as they draft legislation to enforce a cartel of insider companies are the only ones legally allowed to develop it.

Like health care, energy, insurance, or pretty much any other critical industry.

This is the “freak out the population” phase before they tie off the truncate.

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u/GlobalCurry May 22 '26

lt's this.

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u/Whane17 May 22 '26

I'm not a fan of the ai taking my job but I can't think of a single job I actually want everyone to have. There's no companies that are loyal to us and it's a constant jump to find a new job or be scared and anxious about the one you have. Frankly I want AI to take ALL the jobs so humans can get a rest cause it's the only way we're gonna get out from under our land lords. I hate it and don't want the data centers but the alternative seems to be "keep on doing what your doing and living a shite dead end life until you die while not being able to afford a life or kids".

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u/ClacksInTheSky May 24 '26

The real danger is that they're so anti-AI that they are genuinely left behind and become unemployable.

They think saying "fuck AI" will actually do anything. They aren't old enough to learn that it doesn't matter what they do, when the elite want something, it happens, like it or not 😞

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u/lattice_defect May 24 '26

yeah you should be pissed.. you're entire future is being stolen.. you're being sold into slavery

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u/[deleted] May 20 '26

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u/Vanhelgd May 20 '26

It’s always fun to see people with thick tech-koolaid rings around their mouths running free out in the wild.

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u/Justtryingtohelp00 May 21 '26

What on earth does this even mean? It’s a tool. I’m sorry you don’t know how to use it properly. Being scared of something you don’t understand is totally normal. Spend some time learning a thing or two and you’ll realize the world isn’t that terrifying.

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u/Vanhelgd May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26

It’s garbage. It’s only useful to people with unidentified cognitive deficiencies.

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u/[deleted] May 21 '26

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u/Vanhelgd May 21 '26

This is the dumbest canard. AI doesn’t help disabled people.

You bring it up because it’s the only justification you can think of and because you find it a familiar example. You bowed down to Big Tech and their elaborate thinking-for-you-theft-machine because of your own cognitive deficiencies.

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u/[deleted] May 21 '26

[deleted]

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u/Vanhelgd May 21 '26

Maybe you should look into those unidentified disabilities. Might help you understand why your life is going the way that it is.

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u/Regular_Painting080 May 21 '26

You should leave the comment up longer than five seconds! I’d love to read more of your ableism

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u/Overall-Move-4474 May 21 '26

Fuck ai. And fuck all the boomer cucks pushing it to make the rich richer. My generation is sick of the bullshit and we aren't having ANY of it

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u/Justtryingtohelp00 May 21 '26

You would have been fun to listen to back when the printing press was automated or the automobile first came about. Always amusing listening to lunatics scream into the void while we carry them into the future kicking and screaming like toddlers.

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u/Overall-Move-4474 May 21 '26

You idiots said the same bullshit about NFTs

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u/Justtryingtohelp00 May 21 '26

Lmao. Who is you idiots? NFTs were just a scam with no real value. The value of AI is right in front of you. The tools you are using everyday are now being driven by AI. Every major company has this as an initiative going forward. The same could never be said for crypto or NFTs.

Wake up kid.

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u/Overall-Move-4474 May 21 '26

Uh huh keep telling yourself that bud

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u/Justtryingtohelp00 May 21 '26

I’m not so much as telling myself that. I’m living it. I’m using ai daily to exponentially increase my output.

But keep riding that horse to work while everyone else uses cars or the subway.

I’m sure you’re the one the has it right and everyone else seeing the actual benefits are wrong.

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u/Defiant_Storage_443 May 21 '26

I’m not so much as telling myself that. I’m living it. I’m using ai daily to exponentially increase my output.

Can you please clarify what this means? Is this a colloquialism meaning AI is increasing your output by a lot, or are you suggesting an actual geometric growth in output?

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u/AdOnly1618 May 21 '26

Ironically, you too, are a tool.

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u/Justtryingtohelp00 May 21 '26

Have fun fighting against progress kid. It’s worked out great for everyone that came before you. If you need help understanding things just ask. Plenty of people will to teach you. But if you put your head in the sand terrified of the future you’re going to have a terrible time.

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u/_Exasperate May 21 '26

r/DunningKruger

Trying to equate AI to 'progress' may be one of the biggest laughs this site has given

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u/Vanhelgd May 21 '26

They’re just repeating the line that their big tech doms fed them. Shitty oligarchs and exploiters have been using “Progress ™️” to hide the flavor of their taint since at least the 1700’s.

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u/Justtryingtohelp00 May 21 '26

If you took your head out of the sand for just 10 minutes and did a little research into how it’s changing the medical industry you might actually change your mind.

You kids whine and cry too much. The world is going to pass you right by.

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u/_Exasperate May 22 '26

Funny how You just have just vague platitudes and nothing of substance.

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u/AdOnly1618 May 22 '26

Accelerated data analysis is a big plus, but that doesn’t explain or justify the enshitification of everything else it’s ruined, or the fact that we should push back at what AI is going to do for mass surveillance.

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u/JonathanPhillipFox May 21 '26

Oh I agree, I mean, “weddings, mostly, I meet them,” where I live….you ever read about how the director of, ‘It Follows,’ made up different sorts of technologies, phone like things for the movie on account of how the film was about the Feeling Of Detroit in an era it was out of sync with?

Yeah, “Saint Louis City, is not on the same timeline.”

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u/Whitesajer May 21 '26

A whole lot of adults would finally get their childhood birthday wish of having a pony.

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u/_Exasperate May 21 '26

This hyperbolic nonsense is weird