Deutsche Bank's "Survey of Ten Thousand People": Young people are much more anxious than older colleagues about AI impacting jobs

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Author: Long Yue

Source: HardAI

Artificial intelligence technology is reshaping the global labor market at an unprecedented speed, but it evokes radically different emotions among different groups of people.

According to a research report published by Deutsche Bank on September 23, when facing the possible job disruption caused by AI, young people who are most familiar with the digital world are, in fact, the most anxious about the prospect of AI replacing their jobs; while older workers who are thought to be less connected to new technology remain unusually calm.

This survey of 10,000 employees from the US and major European economies reveals profound generational, geographical, and trust divides in the AI era.

Are young people losing their jobs? The generational gap in AI anxiety has already formed

The report’s data shows that there are huge differences across age groups in the "employment anxiety" caused by AI.

According to a dbDataInsights survey conducted from June to August, as many as 24% of young employees aged 18-34 are "very worried" (anxiety level score 8-10 out of 10) that they may lose their jobs due to AI in the next two years.

In contrast, among older employees aged 55 and above, only 10% are equally concerned.

This anxiety is not groundless. The report quotes recent research from Stanford and Harvard universities to support this trend:

A Stanford study shows that in AI-affected professions such as software engineers and customer service, the employment rate of young graduates aged 22-25 has dropped by 6% compared to the peak at the end of 2022.
Harvard's analysis of US resumes and recruitment data found that at companies adopting AI, the employment rate for entry-level positions has plummeted, while that for senior positions has risen.
US Census data also shows that the unemployment rate for recent college graduates (4.8%) has surpassed that of all workers (4.0%).

Together, these data draw a grim picture: AI's impact on the labor market is starting from the bottom of the "pyramid".

Geographical differences in AI adoption

Besides age, geography has also become a key dividing line regarding AI attitudes and adoption rates.

The report notes that Americans are generally more worried about job replacement by AI than Europeans. Within the next two years, 21% of US respondents said they were "very worried", compared to 17% in Europe. The report suggests this may reflect faster adoption and higher social awareness of AI technology in the US market.

In terms of actual application, the gap is even more obvious:

Workplace adoption rate: The US leads at 56%, the UK at 52%, while Germany (41%), France, and Italy lag significantly behind.
Home adoption rate: Spain leads at 68%, above the 57% average for major European economies and the 59% in the US.

This disparity suggests that while individual-level AI experimentation is happening everywhere, enterprise-level integration, governance, and policy support are progressing faster in the US and some European countries (such as the UK), which may eventually translate into productivity gaps among countries.

Huge gap in AI training

Facing the challenge brought by AI, employees generally recognize the urgency of reskilling, but businesses and society are seriously underprepared.

Report data shows that there is enormous demand for AI training among employees. 54% of US employees and 52% of European employees want to receive AI-related training at work. However, the supply side is greatly lacking: so far, only about one-third of US employees and one-quarter of European employees say they have received any form of AI job training.

In the face of insufficient corporate training, some employees have started to "rescue themselves". About one-third of Americans and over one-quarter of Europeans are learning AI via watching videos, with about one-quarter reading related articles. Even so, half of respondents said they have taken no self-study measures in the past 3 to 6 months.

Trust deficit: The last barrier to large-scale AI adoption

Although AI technology has already seen initial applications in areas such as personal assistants (61% usage rate in the US, 50% in Europe) and content creation, the report clearly points out that "trust" is the key obstacle preventing deeper and higher-value penetration.

When asked about trust in AI in specific fields, results show widespread skepticism:

Extremely low trust in high-risk fields: 40% of respondents do not trust AI to manage their personal finances, and 37% do not trust AI with medical diagnosis.
Even core features are questioned: 29% doubt the fairness of AI decisions, and another 29% don't trust the accuracy of AI-provided information.
Common applications are not exempt: Even for customer service—one of the most common uses—27% of respondents expressed distrust.

The report thinks that although model accuracy is improving, “hallucination” and bias caused by the probabilistic nature of large language models (LLMs) continue to erode user trust. Until reliable trust mechanisms are established, the path to commercialization of AI in highly reliability-dependent industries like finance and healthcare will be filled with challenges.

This article comes from the WeChat public account "HardAI". For more cutting-edge AI news, please visit here

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