The Kids Will Be Alright
After spending the holidays with my niece and nephews, I’ve reflected on a thought I know all of us have…
I think the kids will be alright.
For the first time in recent American history, I seriously don’t think parents have any idea what the fuck their kids should be doing with their lives. AI has threatened white collar career growth at levels we haven’t seen since… maybe never? While automation has steadily replaced monotonous back-office work, AI’s creative engine is now stepping into higher-level “thought” work at unprecedented scale. So, what professions should children today be groomed for?
Lawyer? Nah, AI’s already pretty good at reciting books and drawing connections.
Finance? Don’t think so- AI can produce ad-hoc reports faster than junior analysts can blink.
Software Engineer? Even the undergraduate-to-upper-middle-class-sure-thing is being threatened.
For several generations, there’s been a cultural certainty that regardless of economic or political standing, an American-born child could secure a long, moderately happy life if they had the privilege to pursue a traditional, careerist education. That certainty is starting to fade.
I reflect on the last time young people faced this kind of uncertainty. I’m humbled to remember that before 1970, any young man could have his life taken away and drafted to war. What could a middle class family do for their boy in the face of Vietnam and rising globalism?
With this uncertainty, something amazing happened… things got weird. The draft era birthed a counterculture of drugs, art, protest- all of which got baked into the next generation of industry. Silicon Valley’s darling child, Steve Jobs, came out of this era, very much a part of its hippie, anti-authority culture. In the Steve Jobs biography:
[Jobs] still fancied himself a child of the counterculture. On a visit to a Stanford class… [t]he students asked questions, such as when Apple’s stock price would rise, which Jobs brushed off. Instead he spoke of his passion for future products, such as someday making a computer as small as a book. When the business questions tapered off, Jobs turned the tables on the well-groomed students. “How many of you are virgins?” he asked. There were nervous giggles. “How many of you have taken LSD?” More nervous laughter, and only one or two hands went up.
Later Jobs would complain about the new generation of kids, who seemed to him more materialistic and careerist than his own. “When I went to school, it was right after the sixties and before this general wave of practical purposefulness had set in,” he said. “Now students aren’t even thinking in idealistic terms, or at least nowhere near as much.” His generation, he said, was different. “The idealistic wind of the sixties is still at our backs, though, and most of the people I know who are my age have that ingrained in them forever.”
Are we underestimating what kind of counterculture will spawn from the AI era? Sure, kids have always rebelled against their parents… but somewhere in America right now, there’s a kid saying, “no, Mom and Dad, I’m not becoming a lawyer” and she has a defensible rationale to back it up. That kid might end up taking a path of true non-conformity- bringing something genuinely new into the world.
As uncertainty grows, our usual cycle of rebellion will spike sharply and lastingly, as more brilliant, well-resourced young people take part, just like their great-grandparents did in the ’70s.
My shamelessly naive prediction is that counterculture could defeat the algorithms that imprison us today. Doomscrolling, isolation, and parasocial relationships will be seen as “lame” or “cringe” by the youth. We’re already seeing positive trends towards this with “dumbphones”, in-person social clubs, and the touch grass movement.¹
Of course, there will be many challenges ahead: housing, energy, climate change, and wealth inequality- to name a few. But, history shows that humans are really fucking resilient. Our job isn’t to solve everything today, but to build the infrastructure of technology, free-thinking, and optimism needed to finish the job.
The kids will be alright.
¹ One of my role models, Slack co-founder Stewart Butterfield, recently said he’s unsure what he’ll build next, build it will “help people use their phones less often.”