'Fearful' Gen Z Employees Intentionally Sabotage AI Adoption Over Job Security Concerns

A growing sense of job insecurity due to the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) tools, particularly among Gen Z workers, is prompting them to sabotage the rollout of the technology in their companies, a new report has found. Published on Tuesday (Apr 7), the report titled, "AI adoption in the enterprise" by AI agent firm Writer and research firm Workplace Intelligence surveyed 2,400 knowledge workers across the US, UK and Europe and found that while 29 per cent of the general workforce hinders these rollouts, that figure climbs to 44 per cent among the Gen Z demographic.

"29 per cent of employees, including 44 per cent of Gen Z, admit to sabotaging their company's Al strategy. 76 per cent of the C-suite say employee sabotage poses a serious threat to their company's future," the report highlighted.

Among those who confessed to sabotaging the company's AI technology, 30 per cent did so out of concern about their job. This highlights the prevalence of "FOBO", the fear of becoming obsolete, within the modern workforce, according to a report in Fortune.

The sabotage by Gen Z workers includes entering proprietary data into unapproved or public AI tools as well as outright refusal to use the technology. Notably, some employees have admitted to more active subversion, such as intentionally producing low-quality work or tampering with performance reviews to make AI appear ineffective.

The report added that AI was no longer experimental at the workplace, as 70 per cent of all employees and nearly all C-suite respondents (94 per cent) noted working with AI tools for at least 30 minutes per day.

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Future Of Jobs

Last year, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned that AI could wipe out half of the entry-level white-collar jobs within the next five years. Amodei said repetitive-but-variable tasks in law firms, consulting, administration, and finance could be eliminated soon, with CEOs looking to use AI to cut costs.

"Specifically, if we look at jobs like entry-level white, you know, I think of people who work at law firms, like first-year associates, there's a lot of document review. It's very repetitive, but every example is different. That's something that AI is quite good at," Amodei said.

Geoffrey Hinton, regarded by many as the 'godfather of AI', has also stated that the rise of technology will make companies more profitable than ever, but it may come at the cost of workers losing their jobs, with unemployment expected to rise to catastrophic levels.