Born between the mid-1960s and the late 1970s, Generation X is now approaching its sixties, and faces a pressing problem: many of the skills its members have developed over the course of their careers are obsolete or no longer required.
The problem is made worse, given that in many cases, they haven’t earned enough to save for a decent retirement when the cost of living is drastically increasing. Living on a state pension is a bleak prospect.
The obsolescence of Generation X’s skills is due to technologies developed over recent decades, notably AI, which has automated any number of tasks, or allowed them to be done by younger professionals who understand the technology better.
If you’re a creative professional, it’s tough out there. Those who used to make a living from art, photography, writing, etc. find that, increasingly, these types of activities are carried out by generally younger professionals wielding tools such as generative algorithms, with results that, moreover, anyone with a certain level and experience hates.
It’s not that they’re not able to use those tools anymore… it’s that for reasons based on personal standards, they refuse to. If they work in advertising, apart from seeing how the industry is decimating its ranks due to increasing automation, they find that their work is now done by people with accounts on social networks, with skills that seem absurd and impossible to understand…not because they are difficult to learn, but because they seem trivial.
And while Generation X is dealing with growing obsolescence, Generation Zers, who are entering the labor market, have to deal with companies that no longer need them, because the jobs they once did to learn new skills are no longer around.
In the white-collar world of work, a professional with some experience and a generative algorithm used as an assistant no longer needs an intern, who therefore encounters a real problem when it comes to acquiring these skills. So the question becomes, how to acquire relevant experience so as to get on the job ladder.
Accessing positions that offer on-the-job training is becoming harder, and to make things even worse, many members of Generation Z who finally manage to join companies are on the street in a matter of a few months, before learning anything.
What’s going wrong with these recent graduates? According to employers, they lack motivation or initiative: 50% of the leaders surveyed cite this reason to justify what went wrong with their new hires. In addition, these bosses also pointed to the lack of professionalism, disorganization, defeatist attitudes and poor communication skills of Generation Z as the main reasons for telling these graduates to look elsewhere for a job.
Employers say Gen Zers are late for work or meetings, do not dress appropriately, and do not use appropriate language in the workplace. According to more than half of these employers, current university graduates are not prepared for the world of work. More than 20% say they are not able to manage their workload.
Of course, educational institutions, or at least those that care about their students — which unfortunately are not all of them — are aware of these types of limitations and attitudes, and are trying to help their students acquire the skills the market demands. But with AI rapidly developing into AGI, artificial general intelligence, these problems are only going to become more acute, both for the youngest of Generation Z, and for the older members of Generation X.
A “pause” on the development of AI? It’s not going to happen
How do we react to a technology that threatens the entire structure of society? Banning it or interrupting it is not an option. My opinion? As Marshall McLuhan said in 1967:
“When we invent a new technology, we become cannibals. We eat ourselves alive since these technologies are merely extensions of ourselves. The new environment shaped by electric technology is a cannibalistic one that eats people. To survive one must study the habits of cannibals”
Or as John Brooks said in his book “Business Adventures,”
“there is no possible protection against technology except by technology.”
So, bon appétit!
(En español, aquí)
—
This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:
 Escape the Act Like a Man Box |
 |
 |
 |
—
Photo credit: iStock.com
