Humans vs. the Digital Frankenstein: Can Youths Outrun AI for their Future?

Photo courtesy: Forbes

With a single command, it creates a Davinci-esque masterpiece. It calculates spendings in seconds and drafts a flawless email in an even shorter time. This is a digital Frankenstein monster: a writer, researcher, designer, and more, all in one system. It has evolved every day, pulling humanity further into its efficient orbit. Now, as artificial intelligence enters the workforce—not just as a complement to human labor, but as a substitute—many youths find themselves lost: what career will provide them fruitful prospects. Or a future at all?

Recently, Stanford researchers published a study on jobs that were at risk of replacement with AI using payroll data from the U.S.’s biggest payroll software company. As language learning models, AI works based on online data, such as databases and publications, meaning it is most functional with jobs that involve repetitive actions that can easily be learned from text. Accordingly, the jobs that are at highest risk involve mechanical or habitual tasks (which will be elaborated upon in the following paragraphs). Furthermore, because AI learns careers the way youths do—from textbooks and lessons—they both share a similarity: they lack practical knowledge and know-how. This causes a deficiency in job opportunities for inexperienced youths, and a market that only favors weathered veterans and AI, which was proven in the said Stanford study: employment of workers aged between 22 and 25 in such AI-exposed fields dropped by 6% while employment of older workers in the same field rose up to 9% in the U.S. (CBS). What’s more, the blunt precision of this digital Frankenstein is yet to improve, and employment is yet to get more difficult. 

To illustrate a picture of what the job market will look like in the next decade or so, the following are only a few fields pertaining to the category of rote work:

Accounting and auditing

The knowledge-based work of accountants and auditors requires repetitive actions such as managing financial records and reports, analyzing trends, and calculating profits and losses. AI can easily be trained for this task using available resources on the internet. In fact, according to Forbes, 20% of analytical roles will be at risk by 2030. 

Computer programming

A large portion of computer programming is routine coding, which is both tedious and time-consuming. Since AI can code much more efficiently, this task will be automated, up to 40% by 2040, according to the World Economic Forum. Still, the larger portion of computer programming, such as complex, large-scale research and innovation, will most likely be assigned to humans until later. 

Customer services and sales

Telemarketers and customer service professionals complete their tasks by speaking to an individual on call while following a loose script for conversations. Recent AI models can create seamless conversations with humans—many advanced algorithms are more adept at customer service than human employees. Slowly lurking, it seems the Frankenstein monster has already begun its hunt for victims: repetitive task-based workers and aspiring youths.

As high schoolers decide which majors to take in college, and college students ruminate on job options, it is clear that AI development has become a crucial factor to consider. The concerns are visibly reflected in computer programming major enrollments—expansion has slowed to 0.2% in the U.S. in 2025 (The Atlantic). Indeed, such concerns are very appropriate, as the International Monetary Fund estimates that 60% of jobs in advanced economies will be at risk from AI. In essence, AI has become an inseparable part of the workforce, leaving humans to adapt to this new reality. 

Nonetheless, while these concerns remain entirely valid as AI, experts simultaneously assure individuals that it will be unable to completely replace any given workforce in a short duration, especially those involving physical and empathetic interaction, such as therapists (USA Today). Briggs and Dong from Goldman Sachs postulated that “Until the AI adoption cycle has fully played out, the potential labor market disruption—including which jobs are likely to be displaced by generative AI—will remain an open question.” 

So perhaps it is humanity’s final invention, as was echoed by many prominent scholars, including Stephen Hawking and Nick Bostrom. Like Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, such a daring invention could lead to its creator’s demise. Yet with the alarmingly rapid developments of AI, we cannot be certain of the long-term impacts of this digital Frankenstein on the workforce. Until then, youths are taking a leap of faith as they step into the uncertain future.