Young Australians reject AI boom as 'scary,' demand slowdown
Gen Z feels trapped between AI's benefits and fears it will undermine learning and autonomy, as public concern peaks.
What to know
- Nearly 80% of Australian students use generative AI while studying despite gen Z reporting significantly worsened attitudes toward the technology, viewing it as a threat to independent thinking and authentic learning.
- Minderoo Foundation data shows 63% of Australians believe AI is advancing too fast, with most saying risks outweigh benefits—attitudes now reflected in mainstream calls from AI industry leaders like Dario Amodei to deliberately slow development.
- Young people face a paradox: they fear AI's long-term impact but feel compelled to use it competitively, describing the tool as a 'cheat code' they can't afford to abandon without falling behind.
- On social platforms and forums, debate centers on whether supervised AI use in education is safe, with researchers warning that false confidence obscures knowledge gaps while students argue careful verification makes it a legitimate learning aid.
The dispute Whether students can reliably verify AI outputs without expert-level domain knowledge, or whether AI use shortcuts genuine learning regardless of how carefully the student thinks they're supervising it. · positions read across 26 posts and comments
Careful, supervised AI use with verification is legitimate learning and can't be equated to lazy shortcutting.
-
“I do the research, genAI does not. I use it to clarify my understanding of what I've read. And if it gives me any new information - I check it.”
ChaoticJigglyPup · Reddit ↗
Students overestimate their ability to catch AI errors and lack expertise to verify outputs against primary sources.
-
“Not to sound elitist but I had two undergrad degrees under my belt before I went into research and the amount of stuff I still didn't know that my supervisors did is astonishing.”
SquiffyRae · Reddit ↗
AI has genuine practical value for efficiency and specific tasks like coding and boilerplate work, not just hype.
-
“I'm not pro AI exactly, but I use AI a lot at work for development work. It is incredibly fast and good with code.”
leviathanGo · Reddit ↗
The real danger is institutional acceptance of AI without proper expert review and oversight.
-
“The particularly depressing thing is that a lot of the time AI causes trouble, it's when it IS being supervised. But the people who are supposed to be actually checking and signing off are just way too trusting of the AI and accept it…”
Gothiscandza · Reddit ↗
“I want to be able to create my own thoughts, my own opinion, rather than being reliant on AI … but I think that for me, studying, I can't study without it.”
Elise Humphreys, Student, Curtin University · ABC Australia ↗
Elise Humphreys 19-year-old student at Curtin University
Dario Amodei Anthropic CEO
Sam Altman OpenAI CEO
Elon Musk Tesla CEOMinderoo Foundation Research organization
The record 3 articles and posts · last 8 days
- summary covers to here · Sep 19, 12:45 AM · 1 piece above arrived after
What people are saying 24 voices from 2 sites · best of 26 · verbatim
- Sep 22
-
Unless the "AI" fired the shots on its own, it was completely human error. If it had occured, it wouldn't have been the first time and error was made due to a human not picking up on a shitty source or output from a shitty analysis technology, and we sure as shit put some of the blame on them when it happened and stopped using them if we couldn't…
- Sep 20
-
these are all 'new tech' problems. people also use things like salesforce, NetSuite, hubspot like idiots too - it's not so much a problem with the tech, it's a problem with the users.
- Sep 19
-
Perfect examples, and, once again, thank you for being a fantastic example to them. With how prolific AI is becoming (like in Google search when researching even, as you mention) you are really, really helping your students and their discernment in an age it's critical. At the very least, you're showing them the flaws of AI and how it can be…
-
A
smart young people 👏 # ai # technology # education # billionaires https://www. abc.net.au/news/2026-09-19/you ng-people-against-use-of-artificial-intelligence-your-say/107151886
-
Meanwhile, companies: "let's get literal brain cells/neurons and let you use them for computation, also we should use the brain (which we barely understand, being generous) as inspiration and a template for the next AI advancements"
-
Yes. Intelligent people tend to dislike generative AI. That’s a trend I’ve noticed in school and on the internet
-
Unless the "AI" fired the shots on its own, it was completely human error. Anybody who relies entirely on a computer for anything will learn pretty quickly why it's not a good idea. If you all can't understand that Artificial Intelligence is not a sentient being, I'm worried for the future of the world.
-
Earlier this term I got a shouty email from a parent, what I eventually deduced was that the parent had put some info I’d sent through an AI which read and interpreted it wrongly, and then they used AI to write a response full of BOLD and SHOUTINESS, which is 100% not a respectful way to approach a teacher to begin with but is even more egregious…
-
You sound like a brilliant teacher, thank you for what you do for these kids. That's rough :/ you're exactly right though. I can't speak for you but can imagine I, personally, would rather receive a students real work even if it's full of mistakes. I have to say, I'm grateful I went to school when the importance of spelling, grammar, tense (from…
-
The particularly depressing thing is that a lot of the time AI causes trouble, it's when it IS being supervised. But the people who are supposed to be actually checking and signing off are just way too trusting of the AI and accept it blindly for their legal submissions/audit report/research/whatever.
-
Do you not understand how to research? When I'm looking at sources I check publishing dates, peer reviews, other works that cite it. I'm literally doing the exact same thing people do when they have a human tutor. If i have to correct it I give it the source links for multiple sources that say the same thing.
-
Obviously? I read the source material. I bring the relevant information to my research notes. I write the passage of text for the assessment. I share that text with ChatGPT to clarify that my understanding is correct. It suggests changes. I make changes. If it suggests other information from sources outside what I've given it, I absolutely check…
- Sep 18
-
And what makes you certain that you've read and interpreted the source correctly when you tell it it's incorrect? Don't get me wrong, most times it's super, super obvious. But how are you certain that source is the most up to date information so when you're correcting the AI you are giving it the correct information? If you've never read the…
-
Sure buddy, and is it on the same level? And again you don't seem to understand nuance. Intelligent students refusing to do work teachers used AI to make vs some students not wanting to do work online. Now your claiming that there were students refusing to do the work if it was source online, was it the same reasoning? Work sourced online is still…
-
Again: I am not using genAI to do any research for me. GenAI does not do the research for me. I do the research, genAI does not. Research genAI no, Human me Yes. I use it to clarify my understanding of what I've read. And if it gives me any new information - I check it. Don't need to be an expert PhD anything to do this.
-
You've ignored enough of my arguments for one day. It's quite sunny outside and I have places to be. I wish us all the best.
-
Funnily enough in my experience it's the opposite. It's the ones with PhDs who recognise its limitations and how to use it. It's the dumbest people who never learned real skills first who seem to believe it's infallible and using it makes you on the same level as those who can do it
-
Not to sound elitist but I had two undergrad degrees under my belt before I went into research and the amount of stuff I still didn't know that my supervisors did is astonishing. The actual experts are so far ahead of even your average undergrad it's hard to describe unless you've experienced it yourself. I wish you the best on your study journey…
-
I actually understand nuance very well. And yes. Students were refusing to do work that was sourced entirely online.
-
"Why is the older generation messing it up so bad for us?" The question for the ages. So far I see we're firmly embedded in the Horizon Zero Dawn timeline, which would make Guerilla Game's story writers prophets and our civilization the "Old ones" future generations will remember with contempt. # ai # social # policy https://www…
-
Stuff like this Basically pick an area of research. Chances are there's someone using AI modelling to increase their productive output in that field. Is there shit loads of useless drek being produced? Absolutely. But AI is a much more diverse tool than just chatbots. It's just not particularly impressive when it's telling me how to tie my shoes…
-
Oh I thought this was satire until the second paragraph. POE's law in action I guess. I am terrified for your patients.
-
Writing basic simple boilerplate code. Churning out passable good enough "art". Scanning text for inconsistencies. Teaching concepts to a student who can ask good questions
-
This is likely because you’re using a free model. I’m not pro AI exactly, but I use AI a lot at work for development work. It is incredibly fast and good with code. I can abide by most arguments against GenAI including environmentally and ethically, but not value in efficiency. That’s just false.