The Evidence That AI Is Destroying Jobs for Young People Just Got Stronger

Summary

In a moment with many important economic questions and fears, I continue to find this among the more interesting mysteries about the US economy in the long run: Is artificial intelligence already taking jobs from young people?If you’ve been casually following the debate over AI and its effect on young graduates’ employment, you could be excused for thinking that the answer to that question is “possibly,” or “definitely yes,” or “almost certainly no.” Confusing! Let’s review: Possibly! In April, I published an essay in The Atlantic that raised the possibility that weak hiring among young college graduates might indicate an AI disruption. My observation started with an objective fact: The New York Federal Reserve found that work opportunities for recent college graduates had “deteriorated noticeably” in the previous few months. Among several explanations, including tight monetary policy and general Trumpy chaos, I considered the explanation that companies might be using ChatGPT to do the work they’d historically relied on from young college grads. As David Deming, an economist and the dean of undergraduate studies at Harvard University, told me: “When you think from first principles about what generative AI can do, and what jobs it can replace, it’s the kind of things that young college grads have done” in white-collar firms.Definitely yes! Soon after my essay went up, several other major news organizations and AI luminaries endorsed even stronger versions of my hedged claim. The New York Times said that for some recent graduates “the A.I. job apocalypse may already be here.” Axios reported that “AI is keeping recent college grads out of work.” In a much-discussed interview predicting a labor “bloodbath,” Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei made the audacious forecast that AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs within the next five years. By June, the narrative that AI was on the verge of obliterating the college-grad workforce was in full bloom. Until … A...