Latest / Elon Musk Podcast / Why Gen Z is sabotaging corporate AI

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Why Gen Z is sabotaging corporate AI · Elon Musk Podcast

• 0:00
  44% of Gen. Z workers admit they're actively
• 0:03
  sabotaging their own employers artificial intelligence
• 0:06
  rollouts. Which is just a staggering
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  number. Yeah, they're deliberately
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  generating bad outputs, entering proprietary data into public
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  tools and, you know, just refusing to engage with mandated
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  platforms. Right.
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  And when you generate a bad output on purpose, you're
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  actively poisoning the feedback loop.
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  Because the system learns from what you.
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  Feed it. Exactly.
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  These systems rely entirely on user interaction to improve
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  overtime. So I mean, if the users feed
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  them garbage, the model degrades.
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  It's a quiet, deliberate degradation of the tools from
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  the inside. So if you manage A-Team or run a
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  department right now, you likely have people nodding along in
• 0:44
  your strategy meetings while secretly trying to break the
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  system from their desks. Yeah, it's highly likely.
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  We're looking at how the generation that grew up entirely
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  online became the loudest, most aggressive critics of automation
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  in the workplace, and what happens when they decide to just
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  unplug entirely. The hostility is really spilling
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  out into public view now, specifically at college
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  graduations. Oh, the commencements.
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  Right. Recent graduating classes are
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  loudly booing tech executives who show up to give pro
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  automation speeches. Yeah, like Eric Schmidt, he
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  stood in front of 10,000 University of Arizona graduates
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  and told them machines are coming for their jobs.
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  Which is a tough crowd for that message.
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  Very He received sustained stadium wide boos.
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  He actually had to interrupt his own speech to acknowledge that
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  the fear felt by the graduating class was, you know, completely
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  rational. And he wasn't the only one.
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  Gloria Caulfield was booed at the University of Central
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  Florida just for calling automation the next industrial
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  revolution. And then you had Scott
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  Borchetta, who took a totally different approach at Middle
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  Tennessee State University. Right, he basically told the
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  graduating class to deal with. It yeah, essentially saying they
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  could hear him now or pay him later.
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  And the executives always seem genuinely surprised by the
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  reaction. I mean, Caulfield literally
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  paused her speech and asked the crowd what happened.
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  Which shows a pretty severe disconnect from the reality of
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  the audience. Totally.
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  I mean, think about being in that crowd.
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  You're sitting there in a cap and down.
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  You just went into the severe year financial debt for a degree
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  and a billionaire is on stage telling you that your education
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  is already expired. Before you even get the diploma.
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  Right, the students perceive a class of executives profiting
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  from the exact automation that threatens their immediate career
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  prospects. And the Industrial Revolution
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  metaphor that Caulfield used is, well, it's pretty tone deaf if
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  you know history. The original Industrial
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  Revolution involved massive social upheaval, child labor,
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  and brutal living conditions for the working class for decades
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  before any broad societal benefits showed up.
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  So telling 22 year olds they're about to live through the modern
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  version of that is not exactly an inspiring commencement
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  message. Not at all.
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  We even saw a technical failure trigger this same hostility at
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  Glendale Community College. They used an automated system to
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  read the graduates names as they walked across the stage and it
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  malfunctioned. Right, of course it did.
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  And the audience responded with collective boos and hissing.
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  They view the technology as this unwelcome intrusion into
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  significant life milestones. It's stripping the humanity out
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  of moment they worked years to achieve.
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  NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang tried to soften the blow at another
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  commencement. He told graduates that
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  algorithms are not likely to replace them, but someone using
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  the algorithms better than them might.
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  Which is just a more polite way of saying your job is still at
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  risk. Exactly.
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  And the polling data really backs up the crowd's reaction.
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  According to surveys from Gallup and the Walden Family
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  Foundation, the emotional trajectory of adoption has just
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  hit a brick wall. Yeah, the sentiment has
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  completely shifted. 51% of Gen. Z uses these tools weekly, but
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  the positivity has vanished. Excitement plummeted 14 points,
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  hopefulness is down 9 points, anger has surged 9 points and
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  anxiety remains persistently high at 42%.
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  You know, you might assume that familiarity brings comfort with
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  new tools. Sure, that's the usual
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  assumption. But here, familiarity is
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  breeding contempt. The daily users, like the ones
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  most familiar with how the software actually functions.
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  They report the sharpest decline in positivity.
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  Because they actually see how it works.
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  Exactly. They see the flaws, the
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  limitations and the demands that places on them. 80% of Gen.
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  Z actually believes automation will make learning more
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  difficult in the future. Which completely flips the
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  narrative of tech enabled education on its head.
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  It does. Pluralities view the technology
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  as a direct threat to core human skills.
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  They believe it harms critical thinking and stifles creativity
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  because it bypasses the the necessary struggle of learning.
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  Right. Increased exposure is simply not
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  leading to higher levels of trust, and the fear of holding a
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  useless degree lines up perfectly with the current labor
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  market reality. Yeah, let's talk about that
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  because the numbers from Zip Recruiter are grim.
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  Entry level job postings have shrunk to 38.6% of the total
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  market. That's a huge drop.
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  Graduate unemployment sits at a 12 year high.
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  Tech companies like Meta, Microsoft, and Oracle are
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  explicitly laying off junior staff due to automation
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  efficiency. Because they do not need 20
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  junior coders when 2 senior developers can supervise an
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  automated system doing the same volume of work.
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  So the pipeline that fed corporate America for decades is
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  just gone. Graduates are trying to piece
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  together a career through unpaid internships, side work in the
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  gig economy, temporary roles. Yeah, they're firing off
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  hundreds of applications just to find a single foothold.
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  And the mental toll of that is measurable.
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  It is researchers at the University of Florida have
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  actually proposed A clinical framework for this called AI
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  replacement dysfunction, or air Aird right.
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  It describes the severe psychological distress linked to
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  the constant fear of professional obsolescence.
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  So how does that play out in the workplace?
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  Think of the traditional corporate ladder as a building.
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  The first three floors have been completely demolished.
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  If you were standing on the ground floor looking up, you
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  cannot climb if the bottom rungs are gone.
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  But management is standing on the 4th floor yelling down,
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  asking why you aren't climbing and you're just staring at a
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  sheer brick wall. That destroys the unwritten
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  psychological contract between employer and employee
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  completely. The deal used to be
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  straightforward. You offer loyalty and hard work,
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  and the company provides a career path and fair treatment.
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  When organizations implement systems that immediately lead to
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  layoffs or major role changes, workers perceive it as a
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  profound violation of trust. And that breach of trust
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  manifests as Phobo, the fear of being obsolete.
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  Workers are dealing with the stress of being forced to train
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  the algorithms that will eventually replace them.
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  One vendor engineer described being expected to work as normal
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  and keep training their automated replacement until
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  their last day. Wait, so you are sitting at your
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  desk? Yeah, on your last week
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  literally teaching a piece of software how to do your job so
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  you can be fired. Yes, it is incredibly dystopian.
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  That is just bleak. They called it insanity in the
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  research, and it leads directly to what they term algorithmic
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  technostras. You are stuck in this
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  performance anxiety loop where you're perpetually evaluated by
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  an opaque algorithm that you do not even trust.
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  Because if your human boss gives you a bad review, you can at
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  least ask for context. You can argue your case.
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  Exactly. You cannot negotiate with a
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  black box algorithm. Gig workers and call center
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  employees face this intensely because their daily metrics,
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  their routes, their pay rates are all decided by automated
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  logic that continuously evolves. So it creates chronic
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  uncertainty about whether your skills will remain relevant next
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  week. And you see the direct result of
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  that in skill hollowing, right? The automation handles the
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  moderately challenging tasks, leaving the human worker with
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  either mindless mundane work or high stress exception handling
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  when the system breaks down. Like the story about the data
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  scientist? Yes.
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  A data scientist recently reported providing A
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  sophisticated solution to a problem based on 13 years of
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  specific industry experience. 13 years.
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  Right. And their manager chose a
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  slower, demonstrably incorrect path simply because the software
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  recommended it. The employee was laid off
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  shortly after. It creates an accountability
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  gap. Workers cannot identify who to
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  hold responsible for decisions affecting their livelihood.
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  The loss of autonomy and competence leads to a deep sense
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  of corporate betrayal. Which ties into the conservation
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  of resources theory. It suggests people strive to
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  protect material, personal and social resources.
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  This technology threatens their income, their professional
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  identity, and their workplace status simultaneously.
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  So if the workers are miserable and the entry level ladder is
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  demolished, we really have to look at the executives who are
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  managing this rollout. Yeah, because it sounds like a
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  nightmare for them as well. It is 75% of executives admit
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  their strategy is more for show than actual guidance. 75%.
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  Yeah, and 64% of CE OS fear losing their own jobs if the
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  transition fails. There is a highly revealing
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  contradiction in the data here, though. 80% of Gen.
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  Z actually trust the algorithms more than they trust their own
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  managers. Yeah, so the sabotage, the bad
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  data entry, the refusal to use mandated platforms, it's not
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  happening because they hate the technology itself.
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  It is happening because of the corporate rollout is a complete
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  disaster. Right, because the executives
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  are mandating tools they barely understand, which leads directly
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  to work slop. Work slop.
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  Yes, work slop refers to automated errors that look just
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  correct enough to pass a quick glance, but are fundamentally
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  flawed and requires significant human effort to catch and fix.
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  Which is exhausting. Bartner identifies this as a top
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  productivity drain. Right now, it takes employees
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  nearly two hours to resolve a single incident.
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  This contributes to 51 days a year lost entirely to tech
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  friction. It takes 2 hours because you
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  have to reverse engineer a non human logic path to find where
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  the error occurred. Yeah, it's frequently harder to
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  fix an automated mistake than to just do the work yourself from
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  scratch. And when the tools failed to
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  meet basic user needs and management cannot provide clear
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  governance, employees just go rogue.
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  Which means security risks. Massive ones.
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  Less than 40% of companies hold official enterprise
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  subscriptions for the tools their employees are using.
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  Workers just turn to their personal accounts, pasting
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  proprietary company data into public models.
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  We are looking at a workplace splitting into two distinct
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  tiers. 92% of C-Suite executives are actively cultivating a small
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  elite class of super users within their organizations.
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  Yeah, but the Super users? These individuals possess
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  genuine proficiency. They save up to 9 hours a week,
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  and they're reportedly five times more productive than their
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  peers. And they get rewarded for it.
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  Right, they're three times more likely to get a raise or
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  promotion. The gap between that small group
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  and everyone else is widening fast. 60% of companies plan to
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  fire those who fall behind or refuse to become proficient, yet
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  only 26% of workers understand even the basics of how to prompt
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  these systems effectively. So they face termination if they
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  cannot adapt to tools that, again, their managers cannot
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  adequately explain. I see this as a failure of
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  leadership. Executives recognize that
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  employee sabotage poses a serious threat to their
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  company's future. 69% of companies are planning layoffs
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  due to automation, yet 39 do not even have a formal strategy to
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  drive revenue from these tools but.
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  Just. Guessing the layoffs are a
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  symptom of strategic failure, they are resorting to threats
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  and reducing headcount rather than investing the time and
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  capital into proper training. I view it a bit differently,
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  actually. I think it's just an economic
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  reality that businesses will always pursue.
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  The tools exist and they drive efficiency.
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  Sure. The individuals who standardize
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  a small set of reliable tools to solve real world problems are
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  effectively pulling the ladder up behind them.
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  If one super user can do the work of five junior employees,
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  the economics heavily favor that model.
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  From a purely financial standpoint, yeah.
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  Businesses focus on revenue per employee, so a freeze on junior
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  level hiring makes perfect financial sense from the
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  executive suite. Even if the economics make sense
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  on a spreadsheet, treating workforce transformation as a
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  purely technical problem rather than a human one breeds
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  resentment. Definitely.
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  Employees make judgement calls about the quality of what their
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  organizations provide when they are handed unclear mandates,
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  performative strategies, and software that creates more work
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  than it solves. Act accordingly.
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  The sabotage is rational and the.
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  Exhaustion of dealing with all of this, the work slop, the
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  constant surveillance, the corporate mandates, it's
• 12:53
  triggering A cultural counter movement, right?
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  We were seeing the rise of the analog renaissance. 63% of Gen.
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  Z is intentionally unplugging to protect their mental health.
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  Final records recently crossed $1 billion in sales for the
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  first time in a long time. The shift.
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  Toward analog is really a search for permanence and control
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  because we do not actually own anything in the digital media
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  world no, we just. Rent it one.
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  Lost password, one cancelled subscription or one algorithmic
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  ban can obliterate years of a person's digital identity and
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  purchases. People are realizing they spend
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  their entire day being alone together in the digital realm
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  and the. Aesthetic is spreading rapidly
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  with the analog bag trend. People are carrying dumb phones,
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  film cameras, playing cards and physical Louise Carmen journals.
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  Instead of scrolling on their commute right, They're filling
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  their free moments with tactile objects.
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  We're seeing the rise of mew mew literary clubs and an aesthetic
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  where it is considered cool to be smart and fun to be tactile.
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  Yeah, physical hobbies like embroidery or jigsaw puzzles
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  offer a sense of self actualization that is completely
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  uncoupled from digital validation.
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  You complete the puzzle for yourself, Not for a post I have.
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  To push back here though, OK, buying an $800 dumb phone just
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  so people can see you're not looking at a screen that is
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  conspicuous disconnection. That's a good phrase.
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  For it it. Functions as a luxury status
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  symbol for people who can afford to ignore their emails.
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  Because for most workers, disconnecting completely just
• 14:22
  means you get fired, that is. A fair criticism, and it
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  definitely has a performative element for some, but whether it
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  functions as a status symbol or a genuine mental health break,
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  the market is reacting to it. Oh.
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  Absolutely it opens. Up entirely new marketing
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  strategies digital advertisements are increasingly
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  dismissed by consumers as just robotic noise, right so brands
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  are shifting to a brand in the hand strategy to cut through
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  that noise that pushes. Companies to use physical touch
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  points. They are utilizing haptic
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  brochures that fold, pop up, and move to engage the sense of
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  touch. They're sending physical direct
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  mail and handwritten notes because if you.
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  Get a handwritten card in an inbox full of automated
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  outreach. You actually remember it?
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  Yeah, the imperfection of human handwriting signals
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  authenticity. The psychological impact of
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  tactile memory anchors a brand in the mind much longer than a
• 15:14
  screen impression. Which is.
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  Why marketing experts are actively advising brands to
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  struggle intentionally, exactly. The most?
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  Innovative ideas are being borne from the friction of human
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  brainstorming, with automation used only at the very end to
• 15:27
  Polish the final product people buy from people.
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  Yeah, that. Physical connection builds trust
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  that automated content simply cannot replicate the
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  generational. Pushback we are seeing from
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  these workers is not strictly anti progress, it is a firm
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  demand for a human centric workplace where tools empower
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  rather than diminish the people using them.
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  When you look at those workers generating bad outputs on
• 15:51
  purpose, it is a generation demanding that the system works
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  for them before they agree to work for the system and the
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  real. Risk for companies is not that
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  this generation will fail to learn these new tools, but that
• 16:03
  they will simply opt out of the corporate system entirely to
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  protect their own humanity. If you're not.
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