Marcus Johnson: [00:00:00] Hey, gang. It's Tuesday, May 26th. Great scout you are listeners. Welcome in to Behind the Numbers, the marketer podcast. I'm Marcus, and I hope everyone had nice long weekends, if you're in the US, for Memorial Day. Uh, if you're in the UK, Spring Bank Holiday. Um, joining me for today's conversation, we have two technology and AI experts based on the West Coast in California.

Marcus Johnson: It's analyst Grace Harmon.

Grace Harmon: Hi, Marcus. Thanks for having me.

Marcus Johnson: Why, of course, of course. Also living, uh, on the other coast in New York, senior analyst Gadjo Sevilla joins the show.

Gadjo Sevilla: Hi, everybody. Happy to be here.

Marcus Johnson: Hey, fella. Uh, we start, of course, with today's fact.

Marcus Johnson: All right, the most visited countries in the world are... You guys can have a guess. Let's see if you can get one of the top three. I've got the top 10 here. Y- you know- What do you think? ...

Grace Harmon: United States, I would guess.

Marcus Johnson: That's third. Ooh.

Grace Harmon: Okay.

Gadjo Sevilla: [00:01:00] France?

Marcus Johnson: 73 million people. France. France. Got you for the win. Uh, 102 million people.

Marcus Johnson: This is in 2024. France, number one most visited country in the world. Uh, the US is third with 73 million. So in second place is?

Grace Harmon: Maybe Japan? Oh, Spain

Marcus Johnson: Yeah, Spain. Japan ninth with 37 million. So it goes France, Spain, US, Turkey in fourth, dark horse. Uh, Italy in fifth, 58 million. Mexico, 45. The UK, yes, uh, 42 million in seventh. Germany, Japan, and Greece round out the top. Um, 10, Greece receives nearly four times as many tourists each year as it has residents.

Marcus Johnson: Hm. Oh, that's too many.

Gadjo Sevilla: Yeah.

Marcus Johnson: They probably hate that. Like, "Bastards. Our country's too [00:02:00] beautiful." Thailand, sneaky, in 11th, and Austria, little old Austria, in 12th. All right. Anyway, here's Real Topic

Marcus Johnson: AI might be wiping out entry-level jobs and changing the ones that survive. Will the bottom rung of the career ladder disappear? Concerns are growing about the impact of AI on graduate employment, explains a recent article from The Economist. Um, Grace, I'll start with you for this one. In your opinion, is AI actually wiping out entry-level jobs?

Grace Harmon: Um, at this point, I would say not across the board. I think that there's a lot of- Mm ... compression of what, you know, the traditional career ladder used to look like, um, when all these routine junior-level tasks are being automated. Um, but a lot of companies do still see value in hiring earlier career talent.

Grace Harmon: Um, [00:03:00] like Reddit and IBM are both amping up entry-level hiring. Um, Reddit's CEO had been saying that they're trying to have a focus on hiring new college grads because they're AI native. Um, so I think that there's, you know, a belief that younger workers are often more adaptable or already educated in AI workflows.

Grace Harmon: Mm-hmm. Um, I think one of the bigger shifts is that entry-level roles are expecting a lot more early on, that they're requiring these higher level skills from, from day one.

Marcus Johnson: Oh, interesting.

Grace Harmon: Um- Mm-hmm ... yeah. I, I think, you know, the workers who can produce higher quality outputs earlier on in their career or faster, um, changes what these companies are expecting from them.

Grace Harmon: Yeah. Um, you know, one of the big issues is just if you're cutting back on junior hiring, you might be saving some money short term, um, but you're gonna have a weaker future pipeline for middle management. Um, you know, you're reducing institutional- Mm-hmm ... knowledge in terms of having a diverse range of different ages and experience levels.

Grace Harmon: Um, and you might have more reliance later on on expensive [00:04:00] outside hires.

Marcus Johnson: Yeah. Gotcha. It's hard to know exactly what's going on here, 'cause you do have, um, data on both sides. There's, um, to what Grace was saying, there are some companies saying, "No, we're hiring these entry-level folks." And companies- Yeah

Marcus Johnson: do disagree with this narrative. There was a Wall Street Journal article noting that in one of the biggest surveys of employees on employers' graduate hiring plans this year, nearly three times as many execs at companies using or exploring AI said they were increasing junior-level hiring in 2026 than cutting back according to Strada.

Marcus Johnson: However, two data points that support, um, the notion that jobs, uh, w- uh, in, um, with the most exposure to AI are suffering the most. A study by Erik Bjornsson of, uh, et al., uh, Stanford University found those aged 22 to 25 working in the most AI exposed roles, software development, customer service, has seen double-digit percentage decline in employment since 2022.

Marcus Johnson: And then also second one, an Economist, um, uh, analysis looked at 10 years' worth of survey data from National Associate and College, uh, [00:05:00] and, uh, colleges and employers found that graduates in fields more exposed to AI suffering markedly worse outcomes. What do you think is going on?

Gadjo Sevilla: I think it's, uh, um, well, like what Gray said, I mean, a lot of companies sort of tend to, you know, to look at entry-level as something that, that's a negotiable.

Gadjo Sevilla: Um, and what we're seeing though, it's not through mass layoffs, but more through a silent freeze, uh, on hiring new graduates.

Marcus Johnson: Yes.

Gadjo Sevilla: Yes. And, you know, that, that causes a problem because You know, you, you, you have college, for example, from, from Yale, they're saying that unemployment from r- from recent graduates has climbed to nearly 6% from pre-pandemic, uh, 3% rate.

Gadjo Sevilla: That's almost, you know, uh, double, right? And if you're looking at these highly- Mm-hmm ... technical, um, you know, areas like computer science, they, they're really starting to [00:06:00] feel it, um, you know, in, in, in, in that, in, in that space.

Marcus Johnson: Yeah.

Gadjo Sevilla: So for, for those that haven't been able to, to sort of diversify their skill sets ahead of this, um, it's, it, it's difficult to, to sort of see a way in.

Gadjo Sevilla: Um-

Marcus Johnson: Yeah ...

Gadjo Sevilla: and, and I think that's something that we'll continue to see, unfortunately.

Marcus Johnson: Yeah. Uh-

Gadjo Sevilla: But not right away. I mean, it's gonna be incremental.

Marcus Johnson: Mm-hmm. Yeah, to the point, you made a few, a few really good ones here, and I wanna touch on a few. One of them, this, um, kind of freezing in hiring rather than an increase in layoffs.

Marcus Johnson: Harvard University found the headcount of junior employees had fallen since early 2023, whilst that of higher-ups had not, but in part because of this, we were not, um, we're not getting rid of people, we're just freezing hiring, and so naturally you're gonna have, uh, less employees if that happens. Um, another thing you touched on here, the unemployment rate for Americans between [00:07:00] 22 and 27, unemployment rate- Mm-hmm

Marcus Johnson: is now at its highest level since the pandemic, climbing just to just shy of 6% in Q1 of 2026. That would make it 33% higher than the national average. In 2019, it was almost exactly the same. Um, and then there's just so much more data here to support that the, you know, the, the grads might be disproportionately affected.

Marcus Johnson: The Institute of Student Employers noted graduate va- vacancies fell 8% last year. And then some execs just kind of coming out and saying, "Look, this is going on." In 2025 LinkedIn survey, 63% of execs said AI would replace at least some of the work of entry-level employees at their companies.

Gadjo Sevilla: So- Yeah, and you're, you're seeing it- Please

Gadjo Sevilla: from, from, you know, the big tech companies who keep saying, "Oh, you know, this percent of our, our, our code is now written by AI," right?

Grace Harmon: Mm-hmm.

Gadjo Sevilla: And so that, that's a direct, uh, correlation to, to the workforce because who, who used to be handling, you [00:08:00] know, all those co- all, all that code and all those commits, that used to be the junior level developers maybe.

Marcus Johnson: Yeah.

Gadjo Sevilla: And so now that's being automated. Um- Areas where they, they still need people is to, to, to check that code, right? If you wanna be specific. Mm-hmm. Because y- you still need oversight. You can't ship something that... And, and I hope they don't ship code that's not vetted by, by human. Um- Yeah ... the, the thing is, with that scale of production, you do need more eyes on, on the products before you ship them- Mm-hmm

Gadjo Sevilla: right? So w- we're just hoping that they're, they're balancing kind of the, the increase in, in code creation and development with proper oversight from, you know, from, from, from human, from human coders.

Marcus Johnson: Mm-hmm.

Grace Harmon: Yeah, you're always gonna need people in the loop. Yeah.

Gadjo Sevilla: For sure.

Marcus Johnson: Um, yeah, Grace, is it fair to say that, yeah, these, these jobs are really just changing?

Marcus Johnson: Gustavo De Souza of the Federal Reserve [00:09:00] Bank of Chicago had this quote, it's been kicked around a little bit, saying, "What if it isn't coming," AI, "isn't coming for your job, but perhaps offering a career change instead?" Uh, maybe not just a complete career change in terms of the job, but in terms of what the job entails to what, um, Gadjo is saying, computer science grads, folks who are getting into, to, to coding, writing less code, but design, spending more time designing and organizing software systems at a higher level.

Marcus Johnson: Um- Mm-hmm ... so maybe, maybe it's the nature of the job as opposed to the actual job.

Grace Harmon: Yeah, and that isn't necessarily a question or an offer from your employer for looking at, um... You know, Meta recently, in addition to the layoffs that it has planned, pushed a lot of employees into AI groups, and it, it wasn't a matter of- Mm-hmm

Grace Harmon: you know, a sign-up sheet. Um, there are really, um, significant expectations that companies are having around these AI business pivots. Um, and some of that ends up being cuts. You know, Cisco, Cloudflare recently, they had great, um, r- financial reports, but they were [00:10:00] doing layoffs and for, for one, that led their stock to drop.

Grace Harmon: For the other, it didn't. Um, so I think the market is a little bit split on, uh, you know, whether making these cuts in the names, uh, in the name of AI development is, um, you know, a positive sign of, uh, efficiency and productivity, or whether that might be a sign of something, uh, you know, more problematic under the surface.

Marcus Johnson: Yeah. Um- There is a, a note, uh, it's a piece of Tech Radar, Rohit Gupta, MD at Cognizant, noting AI can help inexperienced marketers, entry-level folks, focus on action rather than wrangling information from dist- different systems, saying junior staff develop skills and commercial understanding faster, increasing confidence and understanding of where their work fits in with the bigger organizational role.

Marcus Johnson: Um, and Forbes contributor Bernard Marr saying entry-level work is much more than the kind of low-value admin. It's where people learn how the business works, how decisions are made, how exper- how expertise is built. And so Grace, what you were [00:11:00] saying as well, provides this pipeline potentially of, of, of future, um, leaders, um, at that, at that company.

Marcus Johnson: Um, it's interesting as well to see what's changing as a result of this. Two, two things are going on. One, students already changing course. Uh, data from the National Student Clearinghouse shows undergraduate enrollment in computer science fell 11% in 2025. Enrollment in computer programming fell 26%. So, um, some students just, uh, staying well away.

Marcus Johnson: And then the other thing here, um, "One way to ascend the rungs, make your own ladder," says Joseph Fuller, a professor at Harvard Business School. So this idea that Gen Z folks are much more likely to start their own company, um, because they're nervous about their career job prospects. Um, and then also, like, we're talking about entry-level workers, but there is...

Marcus Johnson: I mean, have you guys-- How much data have you guys seen about this actually affecting everyone? Because there was a paper published by two economists at Google which found job postings in AI exposed occupations have declined just as sharply for senior workers as for junior [00:12:00] ones, and that trend. And also interestingly, that that trend predated the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022.

Marcus Johnson: University of Pittsburgh also found the same thing. Is this really an entry-level workers problem, or is this something we're seeing across the board?

Gadjo Sevilla: I think it's across the board, but entry level is just more visible because, you know, you-- th-that could make up the majority of your new hires. Mm. Whereas more, uh, more senior- Mm-hmm

Gadjo Sevilla: more senior staff, you know, they've, they've been there for a long time. Um, they're less likely to be directly affected, um, just because they're not as hands-on, you know, with the technology that's, that's replacing, um, people as, as virtual coworkers.

Marcus Johnson: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Um, let's talk a bit about how it's changing the actual job, especially the job of a, of a marketer.

Marcus Johnson: A- uh, there was a headline by Mark Stenberg of [00:13:00] Adweek, "AI isn't cutting marketing jobs, but it is making them harder." According to proprietary data prepared for Adweek, he says, um, by the research firm NewtonX, he says, "Most organizations report little to no AI-driven headcount reduction. At the same time, majority of marketers say their day-to-day responsibilities have, uh, already shifted, with expectations rising around speed, complexity, and output.

Marcus Johnson: The findings suggest a new reality of the pr- for the profession. AI may be expanding marketers' capabilities, but it's also compressing timelines and raising the performance bar." Gadjo, um, if you had to fill in the blank, what would you say here? AI is making marketing jobs more what?

Gadjo Sevilla: Um, super-supervisory, I think would be the word.

Gadjo Sevilla: Hmm. I mean- Okay.

Marcus Johnson: Nice ...

Gadjo Sevilla: um, you're, you're seeing them, you know, becoming less hands-on in the, in the production process, but they're still there for maybe the, the creative brief. Um, they're, they're managing the agentic workflows, uh, making sure that the brand identity remains, uh, [00:14:00] consistent, that they don't, you know, mishandle client information.

Gadjo Sevilla: A-all that, you know, is, is still very necessary. And as they scale and take on more clients for more campaigns, sure, the, the work can multiply, right? Um, and but at the end of the day, you still have to go over all of that and all, all of that output and make sure that it's something that you, you want to put out there.

Gadjo Sevilla: Mm-hmm.

Marcus Johnson: Um,

Gadjo Sevilla: so that's where they need the expertise. Um-

Marcus Johnson: Yeah. I wanna quickly, Grace, before I come to you, I wanna touch on something 'cause Gadjo, you wrote about this concept of AI brain fry. Um, you said, "Whilst using AI to limit repetitive tasks reduces emotional exhaustion, the intensive oversight of multiple AI agents and tools is creating a phenomenon Harvard Business, Business Review calls 'AI brain fry.'

Marcus Johnson: It's a state of mental fog, slower decision-making, and fatigue that carries significant business costs. Twenty-six percent quarter of US marketers report experiencing the condition." Um- [00:15:00] Gadjo, what, what are some of your thoughts here? 'Cause you, you had a really good point of this, this being a, a red flag.

Marcus Johnson: This is something that, you know, companies should take note of

Gadjo Sevilla: Yeah, it's a, it's a red flag on a number of levels. From, from the com- from the, from the employee standpoint, it's just the cognitive load that they're expected to manage across all these new tools, all the new capabilities, you know. And management wants to see results, so, you know, you use the tokens, uh, use the, the LLMs.

Gadjo Sevilla: Uh, at the same time You know, companies really want to justify their, their AI expenditure. So y- you're spending tens of thousands on these subscriptions, you wanna show that you are using them to the fullest advantage. But who, who, who's being, who's been charged to use these things, right?

Marcus Johnson: Mm-hmm.

Gadjo Sevilla: It's ... It, it goes down to, um, you know, the employees who sort of have to f- find a way to [00:16:00] improve or replace existing tools with the newer, more expensive, uh, AI tools.

Gadjo Sevilla: And-

Marcus Johnson: Yeah.

Gadjo Sevilla: That's fine if you have one, two, or three, but from what we're seeing, you need, you know, different tools for, for image creation, for, for editing, for writing. Um, and so it becomes ... It, it takes a toll, I think, through time if you're just constantly just moving around all these tools.

Marcus Johnson: Yeah. Yeah. I like this line you have where you say, "Unstructured AI adoption, uh, leading to fatigue could scrub efficiency gains."

Marcus Johnson: I think it's something that needs to be, um, paid closer attention to. Uh, Grace, what word would you use for AI is making marketing jobs more what?

Grace Harmon: I had thought strategic, but I agree with supervisory. Mm-hmm. You know, there's automation of these tasks like, um, campaign optimization and data analysis. So there's just

Grace Harmon: It's a lot of moving time away from repetitive tasks and toward these [00:17:00] higher level ones that sometimes only a person really can do, like creative direction and decision-making.

Marcus Johnson: I'm surprised. Yeah. It's interesting. I was ... I thought you guys were gonna say, uh, exhausting, uh, complex, um- Hmm ... because there's a few, uh, a few notes- I'd say those

Grace Harmon: two.

Marcus Johnson: Okay. So-

Gadjo Sevilla: Yeah. But I think those are a given.

Marcus Johnson: Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Gadjo Sevilla: Yeah.

Marcus Johnson: Okay. Um, but I like ... Yeah, I do like these two that you've picked because, yeah, a lot of the, the commentary out there at the moment is, uh, talking about how exhausting AI and ... is making things, and less about the changing nature of the role into something more supervisory or strategic.

Marcus Johnson: Um, there was a recent piece by Ray A. Smith of The Wall Street Journal saying, quote, "AI is increasing the speed, density, and complexity of work rather than reducing it, according to analysis." It's one of the biggest, uh, studies of AI effects on work habits, over 160,000 people by ActivTrak, uh, found the time folks spent on email messaging, chat apps, and business management tools basically doubled as the amount of time [00:18:00] AI users devoted to focused, uninterrupted work concentrating on fixing a problem fell nearly, uh, nine

Marcus Johnson: uh, nearly 10%. Um, so some more data there. And then head of, uh, ActivTrak's Productivity Lab, Gabriela Mauch, I think that's how you pronounce it, says, "It's not that AI doesn't create efficiency, it's that the capacity it frees up immediately gets repurposed into doing- Yeah ... other work." Mm-hmm. "And that's where the creep is happening."

Grace Harmon: Mm-hmm.

Gadjo Sevilla: Yeah. It, it, it's, it's similar to- You know, the, the, the long struggle with, with business software, that you have all these different tools that are not connected that you need to sort of-

Marcus Johnson: Mm ...

Gadjo Sevilla: use and master, uh, and then they get updated, so you have to keep relearning them. With AI, though, I think we're, we're starting to see companies try to consolidate that.

Gadjo Sevilla: Um, like Adobe has now, you know, put in some integrations with, with, with Slack, for example, where, you know, you c- you, you could run, um, you know, your collaboration and [00:19:00] your project management through, through Slack, right?

Marcus Johnson: Yeah.

Gadjo Sevilla: And just, uh, earlier at, at Google I/O, um, you know, Google announced that they've updated their, um, the search box, right?

Gadjo Sevilla: And they're- Mm-hmm ... they're integrating not just AI overviews and AI mode into one place, but, you know, they're putting in image creation. They're putting vibe coding into the search box. You can create an app just by typing or talking to Google. Um, and I think maybe that's, th- you know, that, that's where y- we want to be headed, a single interface with multiple, uh, um, you know, omnidirectional, uh- Tools that you could use

Marcus Johnson: Yeah.

Grace Harmon: Mm-hmm. I think integration has become a word that I see a lot more often in press releases- Mm ... just because data quality- Interesting ... and siloed teams are two of the, the big barriers that a lot of, uh, marketing teams report in terms of being able to effectively implement AI.

Marcus Johnson: I'm wondering how much as the AI starts to mature, [00:20:00] it's gonna calm down people's, um, uh, overwhelm basically.

Marcus Johnson: There was a recent journal article titled The American Rebellion Against AI Is Gaining Steam. Booed Commencement Speakers, Blocked Data Centers, Plummeting Poll Numbers. Fast-growing industry, uh, has a faster growing crisis, and in there, there you have an economist poll saying over two-thirds, 65% of people in every age group, um, more for older folks, but at least 65% in the youngest fo- uh, the youngest group think AI is moving too fast.

Marcus Johnson: So how much of this is just the pace? Like, do you think if everything slowed down by the factor of five, people wouldn't-- There wouldn't be this backlash or this anxiety as much a- around AI? Or do you think it's just more of a technology really, and, and the speed is only adding to it?

Gadjo Sevilla: No, I think it's perception too, because we're just being, you know, bombarded- Mm

Gadjo Sevilla: with AI everything. Mm-hmm. And that hasn't gotten any, any [00:21:00] better or less. In fact, it's, it's just, there's just more of it, right? Everything has to have an AI component to it, and I think, uh, at, at some point, you know, you as a consumer, maybe just a regular person, you hit the wall with that and you're like, "What does this even mean," right?

Gadjo Sevilla: Because they're just using it as a marketing term and saying, you know, "This will solve everything."

Marcus Johnson: Right.

Gadjo Sevilla: And yeah, I think that leads to the fatigue, um- That's a big one.

Marcus Johnson: Yeah. Fatigue's a

Grace Harmon: key word.

Gadjo Sevilla: Yeah. I

Grace Harmon: mean, the pace, the pace is an enormous deal if you think about just, like, how much money, how quickly is flowing into AI.

Grace Harmon: Um- Yes ... yeah, I, I think just the money is a good example- Yeah ... of how fast things are moving. Um, and Gadjo's right, I think AI is being slapped as a label onto absolutely every product. It's kind of like the same thing with protein now, I would say, too.

Marcus Johnson: Yeah. Um, yeah, close to or over $700 billion, uh, committed in [00:22:00] investments for the four biggest, uh, AI companies, um, which is just impossible to wrap your head around that amount of money in a single year.

Marcus Johnson: Um, talking of, uh, the backlash, the fears, anxiety around this, Grace, you recently wrote that AI-first strategies risk backlash amid job loss fears. You're pointing out that Oracle is laying off tens of thousands of folks. Block, formerly Square, is cutting half its workforce to move towards an AI-driven operating model.

Marcus Johnson: Uh, but what could backlash actually look like? You had written a piece, uh, titled Gen Z Workers Undermine and Sabotage Company AI Plans As Adoption Turns Into a Labor Battle, and a year ago, you'd noted that, um, a number of folks were sabotaging their company's gen AI strategies. Is employee backlash, Grace, against AI a flash in the pan or s- the start of something deeper and more systemic?

Grace Harmon: Uh, no, it is not a flash in the pan. Um, companies are not backing down. They're pushing on adoption. They are cutting roles in favor of automation, and [00:23:00] people are getting more and more worried about AI- how AI is gonna affect their lives and their careers. I was looking at a Gallup survey yesterday that I wrote on.

Grace Harmon: Um, curiosity is the top emotion that Gen Z-ers report around AI, but anger and anxiety are the next two, and they're growing pretty fast. Mm. Um, you know, people are worried about job displacement. They're worried about, um, loss of, you know, employment in the creative arts, about heavier workloads, about fewer career opportunities.

Grace Harmon: Um, and I think that especially as automation becomes tied more directly to hiring and staffing decisions, whether that's, um, implied or with a lot more cases lately with CEOs openly saying that's why they're doing it-

Marcus Johnson: Yeah.

Grace Harmon: Yeah ... um, I think employee resistance is gonna ramp up more. Um, you know, you had mentioned the sabotage there.

Grace Harmon: Yeah. There was a Ryder survey, they did it in 2025, in 2026, um, and Gen Z-ers, I think at this point about 44% have reported sabotaging their company's AI efforts. And as you can see with the chart on the screen, uh, for this [00:24:00] data from Ryder, 49% of knowledge workers are saying that AI is helping them with, um, saving time and, uh, autonomously handling tasks.

Grace Harmon: Okay. So it's kind of this combination of, uh, you know, reported benefits, uh, but working against AI in their workflows, I think it shows that, um, perceived personal risk is outweighing utility.

Marcus Johnson: Yeah. And that's up, right? The survey, the share- Yes,

Grace Harmon: it's up from 41%. Yeah ... the

Marcus Johnson: share that have said that they're sabotaging.

Marcus Johnson: They have admitted to it, at least. There might be more people who are doing it who are scared to say yes. Um, but close to half of Gen Z-ers, and it was high, I think it was like 30 something percent for everyone too, so it's not like it's just them. No, it's not just them. It is everyone, but they, they over index.

Marcus Johnson: Yeah. Um, uh, yeah, Galjo's, uh, Quinnipiac University poll, 70% say AI advancements will likely decrease job opportunities. And then to what Grace was saying, people are more worried than they are excited about AI. You can see from this chart on the screen, data from Quinnipiac [00:25:00] poll, just 35% of US adults excited about AI compared to, uh, 80% who are concerned about it.

Marcus Johnson: What's your take here about, um, the, the backlash that we're, we're starting to see?

Gadjo Sevilla: Yeah. Um, yeah, I wanted to touch on something, you know, Grace said that sometimes the, the CEOs of these AI companies aren't, aren't helping the cause, right? Saying, "Oh, it's going to take over all these jobs." But there's no follow-up to that.

Gadjo Sevilla: It's, there, there's no like- Right ... "But you will be able to get, you know, universal healthcare or something like that." There, there's no- ... there's no quid pro quo. Um, so I think that, that helps. That doesn't help, and it builds anxiety.

Marcus Johnson: Yeah.

Gadjo Sevilla: But, but also the, the idea that where, where, okay, where are the opportunities with AI?

Gadjo Sevilla: So you, you-

Marcus Johnson: Yes ...

Gadjo Sevilla: people feel you're either a, a, a coder or you're in, in the hardware. So you're building data centers. Definitely people need to do that, right? Um, but [00:26:00] even those jobs, um, they're temporary, right? Once a data center is built, it's up and running, you only need a few, a handful of managers to, to sort of make sure- Mm-hmm

Gadjo Sevilla: the, the power and everything is running smoothly. So- They, they haven't really provided a moat that, that could ease that, you know, that, that pushback from people saying, "We ... It, it just feels like, oh, you know, our, our jobs, our futures are being taken, a- and, and now what," right? Yeah. It's ... It's ... I think it's that open-endedness that sort of leaves a, a bad taste in, in, you know, pe- people's mouths and, and makes them f- sort of feel helpless, and I think that's the biggest challenge there is, that, you know, that sensation that some things are gonna end, but there's nowhere to go to from, from there.

Marcus Johnson: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Um, yeah, there has been some, some argument that, yeah, data center bu- [00:27:00] you need people to, to build them, and so that's gonna create jobs. Yeah. But to your point, that's the short term. Once they're built- Yeah ... uh, they're, they're good to go. Um, yeah, people have very strong feelings about this, understandably, um, and it's something that companies, governments too, really need to be taking note of.

Marcus Johnson: There was this, uh ... Right before we, uh, hit record, I found this, uh, survey from King's College London. One in three university students say AI will wipe out jobs so rapidly it will trigger civil unrest. Um, and we've seen, you know, these headlines in the news about, um, booing at commencement speeches, as I've said, people protesting.

Marcus Johnson: Yeah. Things getting, you know, p- there was a, a, a chap who, um, was, um, threatening or was, uh, violent, uh, violent acts towards the head of OpenAI, um, and, and multiple, multiple other cases about people getting really annoyed by this. And so, yeah, companies providing a bit more clarity about what the future might look like can certainly help.

Marcus Johnson: Um, yeah, Grace, you made this point earlier, [00:28:00] but I'll hammer it home because I think it's an excellent one. You were writing, you know, noting that the combination of reported benefits and continued sabotage suggests that perceived personal risk outweighs utility. Uh, I think it's an excellent way to, to sum up what we've been talking about, uh, and something for folks to be considering.

Marcus Johnson: That's all we've got time for for today's episode. Thank you so, so much to my guests for helping me, uh, break this down and understand what's going on. Thank you first to Grace.

Grace Harmon: Thanks for having me. Nice to chat with you.

Marcus Johnson: Yes, indeed. Same to you. Thank you to Gadjo.

Gadjo Sevilla: Thank you very much. This was great.

Marcus Johnson: Yes, sir.

Marcus Johnson: Uh, thanks to the whole production crew, Lance and Luigi helping out with this one, and to everyone for listening in to Behind the Namaste Marketer podcast. Tomorrow, Suzy will have the Reimagining Retail show for you, presenting the infamous May Retailer Awards, uh, and I'll be back for discussing how social media is quietly taking over your living room.