To feel sad watching all these kids going to school

Yes, we are saving for our kids' properties. Also, their degrees, so that they don't end up with debt. AI will kill a lot of jobs but it will create new ones - the job market will be transformed, but we don't yet know how. There will be new jobs and new skills that our kids will have to learn. Manual work will be safe for a while, but not sure for how long when the robots start flooding us (robot deliveries will probably start in 10 years). If someone has a kid now starting uni, I would say, don't waste the money on studying languages or any type of admin, as these jobs will be dead (are dying out now). Learn German/Mandarin, but study science, architecture, finance, medical, etc.

I don’t worry too much tbh, every generation has its challenges and they learn to navigate them.

Assuming my DC don’t choose to move south, house prices where I am are mostly affordable particularly for a starter flat. They will both have support to think about the type of future they want and the kind of job they’ll need to sustain that lifestyle. They’ll find their way and do ok.

@IAmQuiteNiceActually Are they? So they don’t employ anyone? Don’t spend anything? Just take? Maybe check your knowledge of how an economy works. The richest economies have the richest people driving the economy forward.

I've got one at uni and one starting an apprenticeship and I feel the exact same. One will have ridiculous debt and the other is doing a career that whilst booming now, is likely to become a robot job.

Deciding that person x is going to be lifelong miserable is depressing and unnecessary. Yes it will be tricky.
yes it is not fair. Yes it was easier before.
You cannot allow life to be defined by it for those who are able to get qualification and to get on career progression. But it is same for all. Options like live in guardian and later shared ownership. It is what it is until more decent social housing is built.
Young people in my team get on with it because what else can they do?

I hope I’m not the only one who was shocked to read that post! And the poster apparently not thinking it was excessive - how mean of her dh to ask her to cut it down a bit!

Computers did take jobs, it may not have happened as quickly as predicted and it may have even created jobs in associated industries but they aren’t jobs that your average unskilled worker can apply for. Go in a supermarket and see how many jobs have been taken by self check outs have taken or ask accountants how many small business use their services now that apps can do that work for them for far cheaper.

Oh and as someone who works a lot in AI, let me tell you it is a bubble. In 2030 we'll be saying 'remember when AI was supposed to do all this?' It will be there, but in the same way as word processors and payment platforms, as a boring technology that helps somewhat. The hype around it being super intelligent is laughable - it's pure and utter nonsense.

Sorry to be negative but there will never be another boom until billionaires are taxed properly. They're currently taking so much money out of the economy that it will not recover and will get worse.

It's worth remembering that if you were born to a poor family in 1890, there was every danger you would die of starvation. Going to war was a good option as, if it didn't kill you, it would give you a life (what a choice). Sitting around worrying about not owning a house is a hugely privileged position.

My daughter has just started an apprenticeship as a heavy vehicle mechanic for the city transport service.

She wanted to future proof herself. She studied economics at uni but as a graduate just could not get a foothold despite having a degree that was "useful". The graduate jobs are being replaced by AI (admin etc.)

She saw the apprenticeship being advertised on the side of a bus and decided to apply. She was accepted and we are very happy that at least within her lifetime her job won't be given to AI to do. She's in a well paid government job now.

There is no reason whatsover to believe that young people will have an awful future. I don't really get why the message has been put about so much that people just believe it, even though it makes no sense. Is it some sort of campaign from a foreign power that realised a hopeless population is an easy one to defeat?

Every single generation has hurdles and every single generation navigates them somehow. Stop with this pointless wallowing, it is genuinely toxic. Try to resist stupid narratives about endlessly rocketing house prices - that's not how economies work.

The most likely scenario is that due to a falling birthrate, a person born now will be massively in demand as an adult. Countries will do anything to attract them - jobs, houses, huge salaries.

The vast number of young people has probably doubled since your day and it’s too many. Intermediate qualifications for the less academic are not good enough and difficult to source, and there are too few apprenticeships. Young people are being promised a degree gets them a good job but IFS research 5 years ago shows this is rubbish for some degrees. We need a cull in degrees and a boost in higher education below degree level. The big problem is work though. This is disappearing.

To be honest, a lot of that is pretty frightening.

Will it free us from physical and mental constraints? Will we really be healthier? Our children are becoming more sedentary, and seduced by technology, AI, social media, all causing great anxiety and poorer health.

I know not everyone is affected the same way and not all children are the same, but it's scary how much we hsve come to rely on these things that are supposed to help. Maybe George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, et al were onto something 🤔

Their future is unimaginable. AI alone is going to transform the world. At a certain point it will become cleverer than the cleverest human. Then twice as clever, then ten times as clever, then a thousand times as clever. There is no limit. But it isn’t just AI. The kids you see running up the path to school today may live to see the following:

• The end of human ageing
• Gene editing
• Advanced nanotechnology
• Virtual Reality that is indistinguishable from real reality
• The end of physical and mental illness
• Self-driving cars
• Human -like robots doing alll the work
• Mass migration into space

No doubt some things won’t live up the hype, but others will. In 1900 people laughed at the Wright brothers and their feeble attempts to fly a plane. All they could do was send a wooden joke bouncing along a field before diving nose first into a ditch. Within seventy years we were walking on the Moon.

Absolutely. And my PIL are going to try and move closer to us, selling their 4 bedroom house in Herts bought for £15k. Now worth £850k.

My DH says we will be benefiting from their generosity if they pay off our £80k mortgage, which is lovely of course, and very kind. But it's my DC who i do worry about as you say. Their hard work and workforce will be totally different, certainly not as fortunate in the way our parents were.

@ImAPreMadonna wins the thread.

Shakes my damn head. How anyone can be so obtuse is beyond me.

Being 50 plus and with a mortgage paid of
Id swap the the lot the be 20 again and at the start of my life ,able to make different choices than I did
They may not have chance of financial security through housing ladder ,but they have youth on their side ,they can see the world by backpacking and earning as they go .
Life is short
Give me youth over money any day

There are many reasons to not be all doom and gloom.

Possibly not for our generation but I am convinced that our teen's generation will get vaccinations for cancer, the housing market is showing teeny tiny signs of resetting itself, now brexit is firmly established they are able to make decisions very early in their adult lives on if they want to actually remain here or go to a country that isn't inward looking and has more co-operation and investment.

There is opportunity for much more creativity in film and tv with the many streaming services producing high quality programmes, you can self promote music, and other skills online. Information is at your finger tips, and the younger generation are much more skilled at taking advantage of it.

Self drive, shared cars will eventually come in, reducing the difficulties on the road and enabling many more to access personal transport.

AI is a useful tool but it's crap at so many things, it's nothing to worry about, adapt to for sure but worry about, nah.

Once the gains of the boom in the housing market have filtered through, and it's not going to be that long, the housing market will stablise for the jobs and wages of the majority of the population. You can only sell a house for what someone will and can pay for it.

Our teens are quite positive and happy, they can't worry about the future, and worry does nothing, doing something about it helps, because what is the alternative.

And gardeners, nurses, carers, decorators, builders, farriers, farmers, doctors, foresters, chefs, waiters, therapists, live musicians, actors......

sure with climate change and all that thrown in it’s looking bleak so I just enjoy the time we have left - take the kids on all the adventures now. No waiting or wasting time to do things another time or when they’re older!

Steeplejacks look pretty safe to me.

When I left school unemployment was the highest it has ever been. Youth unemployment was diabolical and my first job was a government scheme - milking cows 37 hours a week for £23 a week.
When my mum was born the war had just started and by the time she was thirty a quarter of UK houses still had no inside toilet.

I don't say this in a 'we had it worse' kind of way. I say to show that worrying about the moment doesn't allow for the change that will definitely come.

Things always change. Some things will get worse. Some things will get better. Mostly everything works out alright.

Being sad for young people, just setting out on a life of adventure and opportunity is such a waste of today.

Its not all doom n gloom, some will go into new job roles that don't exist at the moment

That's why I prioritise their future financial security right now. There's another thread where a woman is spending £250 per week on hair, nails, zoo trips and soft play. Diverting a tiny fraction of that to the DCs pension will set them up much better than two hours of paid-for activity which will have no lasting impact on the child whatsoever.