Over the past few weeks, the mainstream media has been sounding the alarm on a worrying new trend. “AI is coming for entry-level jobs. Bill Gates says Gen Z may not be safe no matter how well they learn to use it,” blared Fortune. “AI is wrecking an already fragile job market for college graduates,” declared The Wall Street Journal. “Goodbye, $165,000 Tech Jobs,” wrote The New York Times, “Student Coders Seek Work at Chipotle.” They’re right that unemployment for young college grads—those 20 to 24 years old—is higher than the average U.S. unemployment rate (though both are still historically low). They’re also right that AI tools are flooding the job market and that improved efficiencies are probably shifting job responsibilities around. “A senior-level programmer can give a bunch of prompts to ChatGPT and write 1,000 lines of code or more every day, which before would’ve taken three or four or five entry-level people to do,” said Jonathan Bentz, an engineer at a large AI technology firm. On the other hand, he said, “If we don’t hire entry level workers, we’ll get to the point where we don’t have the next generation of people who can become senior programmers.” Bentz is skeptical that AI will result in a net loss of jobs. “Whenever anything gets more plentiful and cheaper in our country, we can do one of two things,” Bentz said. “We can either have the same productivity and work less, or we can work the same amount and have more productivity.” So far, he said, Americans seem to keep choosing the latter. The Gospel Coalition asked Bentz why college grads are struggling to find tech jobs, what qualities he looks for in new hires, and if he’d let his college-age children major in computer programming. Why are college grads with tech degrees having trouble finding jobs? I think companies are signaling that the skills those grads are leaving college with are not as valuable anymore. You’ve probably seen the movie Hidden Figures, right? Where NASA engineers had to work out by hand the calculations to send humans into space? We don’t need those skills anymore. Nobody would ever say, “We really wish we had more jobs, so let’s have humans keep doing the work of calculators.” Companies aren’t necessarily saying they don’t need the next generation of workers. They’re saying that the skills students leave college with are ones they don’t need. So do colleges need to do a better job of teaching updated tech? I don’t know that universities will ever be flexible enough to keep up with the tech industry. My suspicion is that companies will take graduates and essentially retrain them, because big tech companies have the resources to train their people to do what they need. I think we’ll see more opportunities like mentoring programs to help with that. The skills students leave college with are ones they don’t need. It is incumbent on the universities to understand what the job market needs, but also to provide that in a way that doesn’t sacrifice liberal arts education. Because I do worry about universities becoming factories for building people into jobs. My own liberal arts education at Dordt University taught me all kinds of things, from history to philosophy to theology, that aren’t on my job description but make me a well-rounded person and better employee. If you can’t always look for up-to-date tech skills when hiring new grads, what characteristics are you looking for? We are looking for people with a willingness and desire to keep learning. You can teach almost anybody a skill. If you gave me a few hours a day for the next three weeks, I could teach you to program. I’m confident you could learn that—but do you want to? That’s a different thing. We also do want you to use AI tools in ways that make you more productive. And I tell new employees that being able to have a human-to-human conversation is now a superpower, because anybody can text, type, or scroll. Having the ability to communicate face-to-face is more important now than it used to be. Finally, and I’d tell this to anyone in any field, look for ways to make your manager’s life better and easier. I have experienced many people during interviews saying, “I did this,” and “I did that.” If I hear too many I’s, I think, I know you’re trying to sell yourself to me, but I want to know how you’re going to raise the team. So have the spirit of helping, of making sure that what your company is doing is successful. Talk about how your skills can contribute to that. What’s your biggest worry about AI? One of my biggest concerns is our inability to have thoughtful conversations about it before the technology is out of the box. Because by the time the government gets around to policing anything technological, it’s too late. “What should we do?” is a harder question than “What can we do?” Another question I have: Is the goal ultimately efficiency and productivity? I’m on the board of our local Christian school, and we’re grappling with how to use AI tools in the classroom. Because we need some friction to learn—I’d never want to say fourth graders don’t need to learn the multiplication tables. Even though when they’re engineers, they’re going to use calculators, that’s still foundational information that they need. By the time the government gets around to policing anything technological, it’s too late. So the real question is: How much is foundational, and how much are we okay with the tool doing for us? We can take that even further and ask, “What is the purpose of a job?” Is it to produce something? Then bring on the AI so we can produce more. Or is it to shape our souls to worship God? Then maybe we want to slow down, allow the friction to sanctify us, be more careful in the way we communicate with others, and make sure what we’re creating is serving the world and people God made. Sometimes technology makes us promises it can’t keep. Social media promises us connection but isolates us instead. Video games promise adventure but trap us in our rooms. Pornography promises easy romance and ends up wrecking our ability to love well. Is AI also malforming us? I think you’re hitting on something. All of these things overdose us. So social media gives us the opportunity to be social with 1,000 people until we can’t even be social with three people. With AI, does having the ability to access any information all the time dilute the value of knowledge? Will we have an increasingly difficult time figuring out what is true and what is false? You’ve got kids in high school and college. Would you let them major in tech jobs like computer programming? Or would you steer them into different majors so they could have a better shot at a job after graduation? I jokingly tried to get my daughter to major in tech, but she’s majoring in missional ministries and business instead. If they want to, I’d be fully supportive of my other kids majoring in tech. If they did, I’d tell them to learn how to use the tools. If you’re going to trade school, and you’re really good with a hammer but can’t use power tools, you aren’t very marketable. In the same way, I’d tell technology majors to learn how to use AI as a tool. Their first job experience will be different than mine, because they won’t have three or four years of grunt work. That’s going away. They’ll have a different foundation—perhaps one that’s more creative and interesting!