Is Our Digital Future At Risk Because Of The Gen Z Skills Gap?

Submitted by trafalgar28 t3_10md35s in singularity

Forbes blog: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2022/12/02/is-our-digital-future-at-risk-because-of-the-gen-z-skills-gap/?sh=271e29243ce5

A recent survey by Gartner found that 64% of IT professionals think the skills shortage is the biggest barrier to the adoption of game-changing technologies like artificial intelligence (AI). A separate survey of banking, insurance, and telecoms professionals published by SunTec found that the difficulty in recruiting skilled staff is the biggest obstacle to achieving business goals in 2022. Research published recently by Intel found a surprising lack of understanding around some of the most important technology trends, which are widely forecast to drive business success over the next ten years. It particularly found deficiencies in the understanding of AI, cybersecurity, and quantum computing. The report focuses on the UK but will be equally relevant to other developed countries – and it seems likely the problem will only be more pronounced in developing countries.

Why is there a digital/tech skill gap despite having the availability of so many resources to learn, and work on real-world projects (open source)?? Or is this simply the Dunning-Kruger effect??

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Bierculles t1_j62whbf wrote

This is partly on the corporations themselfes, everyone wants to hire the experts, but no one wants to train them. Quantum computing, cybersecurity and AI barely have a field of study or any university courses, or at least not on a level where it would be relevant for companies that pioneer those fields. There isn't a skillgap, there is a gap in the willingness to train people in those fields because it costs a lot of money.

You can't really teach a lot of this stuff at universities because by the time you finish your degree, the stuff you learned is allready mostly obsolete. For comparison, a degree in computerscience specialized in AI you finished in 2016 is absolutely and completely worthless now in the current AI industry, none of the stuff you learned has even a bit of relevancy anymore.

This is also caused by the ever accelerating pace of scientific progress. For example in AI, there are no experts outside of the teams that actually work on projects like GPT-4 or whatever google is doing. Anyone and everyone who actually knows their stuff works for the AI companies. those who do not have mostly outdated knowledge because a knowledge gap of just two years is gargantuan in that field.

This are just my two cents though, so take it with a grain of salt. My only real source for this is the internet and a friend who works in cybersecurity. He told me one of the biggest issues they have is, if he wrote a book on cybersecurity and how to truly secure a server, 6 months after it got published, most of the information would be obsolete because people would have found ways around it or found holes in systems that were considered secure by the time the book was written. Training someone the conventional way in cybersecurity would be like showing up in Ukraine now with WW2 tanks after he finished his degree. Even with a degree they will still need years of training in the specific field they want to work in. i'm not saying degrees are useless in those fields, they are just the starting point and training someone with a masters degree for 5 years before he even becomes actualy usefull is pretty expensive, an expense a lot of companies do not want to make, they want to hire the pros from other companies that have already been in the field for years because it's cheaper.

It's the common problem of entry level jobs need 5 years of experience. Some fields are hit pretty fucking hard by this problem.

TL:DR: Everyone wants to hire skilled personel, nobody wants to train skilled personel.

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trafalgar28 OP t1_j62zqc1 wrote

As you rightly said every company wants a skilled person. I personally think this is because in today's world, we young people (born after 2000) have access to sooo many things that we can easily become skilled enough to do a job.(I'm talking about an avg software engineer's job).

Now, on the other hand, AI, in particular, is really confusing even for employer(HR) in big tech companies(don't know much about startups or small companies). Most of the courses or BootCamp just teach about ML, but in the real-world AI is all about data, as an MLE 80% job would be in processing the data. I think here's where the problem is, the real-world project is way different from some projects like on Kaggle.

The problem is guidance, unfortunately we young people have to invest our loads of time doing mistakes & learning stuffs, being & doing smart work. I kind of agree with the companies because we should be expected to be more skilled than previous generation because the accessibilty we have & exposure to this technologies in early age.

Sorry if I'm wrong, I'm new to AI. Correct me if I'm wrong.

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Bierculles t1_j631au4 wrote

your not wrong, but just expecting later generations to do twice the work than the previous generation just to get hired somewhere is clearly not working out as we can see with the shortage in skilled staff. Yes, we have access to a lot of information, but there are many things the vast majority of people simply can't learn on their own in a reasonable timeframe. Just telling peoplt to git gud is clearly not the solution, we need to rethink how we teach people for fields like that.

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AsheyDS t1_j647bx1 wrote

>You can't really teach a lot of this stuff at universities because by the time you finish your degree, the stuff you learned is allready mostly obsolete.

Cybersecurity perhaps, but not AI. Learning basics like math (especially calculus) is still very much relevant and needed in ML, and really the AI field hasn't changed as much or as quickly as you think. Also, university is a path to academia, not just work in the tech field. You don't always need a degree. A lot of tech companies will still consider you if you can prove you know your stuff, which can include certifications (much quicker and often more relevant training) or just getting hands on and learning things, and finding a way to get your foot in the door. More difficult perhaps, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. Even better would be if you can bring unique ideas to the table, which is something a degree alone won't provide.

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Iffykindofguy t1_j64u9og wrote

Forbes is billionaire propaganda. Nothing they publish is worth reading.

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ConstantQuestion101 t1_j636f6k wrote

gen z realized the game is all bullshit and they're not willing to play. The collective progress of the species can't be used to lure them because it's a lie and they know it. Every second we waste studying and working serves just to make the rich even richer so they're able to afford having 18 year old bodies when they're 45 while we blue collar workers most of the time have 45 year old bodies when we're 18.

the world can go to shit. I just want to see the cylons taking over everything and ending this venomous killing machine we call the human.

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dustkid245 t1_j66jf3l wrote

Based and same (although I do have to get a job soon for money reasons :( )

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