Millennials are not afraid of technology and are aware that "hard-to-teach intangible skills" are essential in a digital environment, according to surveys, including one conducted by Telenor Group.
Telenor is a Norway-based mobile operator with a presence in over 30 countries across Europe and Asia.
The company, which is the major shareholder of Thailand's third-largest mobile operator, DTAC, is the third biggest by market cap on the Oslo Stock Exchange.
Telenor conducted the survey on nearly 7,000 millennials between the ages of 15 and 30 in Thailand, Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, Pakistan and Singapore.
The findings were derived from two social media surveys, one conducted in the last quarter of 2016 and one conducted in May of this year. The studies were carried out through Telenor's Facebook group.
According to the survey, 32% of millennials say artificial intelligence (AI) is the technology with the greatest potential to give rise to peace, followed by Internet of Things (30%) and virtual reality (28%).
The fact that 32% of millennials say AI is the technology with the greatest capacity for peace is at least somewhat surprising given the perceived potential of this technology to replace jobs.
In most workplaces, millennials outnumber Generation X and baby boomer employees. They are also, because of the posts they occupy, the group most vulnerable to being replaced by AI and automation.
According to a Gallup poll conducted in June of this year, 37% of millennials are at high risk of having their jobs replaced by AI, compared to 32% of those in older generations.
A March 2017 study by Daron Acemoglu, MIT professor of economics and member of the National Bureau of Economic Research, found that "one more robot per thousand workers reduces the employment to population ratio by about 0.18-0.34 percentage points and wages by 0.25-0.5%".
Millennials, however, remain poised in the face of increasing job uncertainty. Among those at high and medium risk of being replaced, only 34% say they are worried about being laid off.
Indeed, average workers remain much less concerned about the effects of AI than experts do. Only 13% of workers (across generations) say their job is in danger of being replaced within five years, according to a Gallup poll conducted on more than 1,100 US workers from April to May of this year. Only 4% say it is very likely that their jobs are replaced within the next five years.
This same study finds that young workers are as unlikely to think their jobs will be replaced as older generations.
Across the board, studies suggest that people are much more positive about job outlooks than AI experts, which perhaps explains their positive views of the technology.
In a follow-up Telenor survey, most millennials maintained that non-technical "soft skills" were most important to secure a "great job in the future".
In Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, close to 36% of respondents said the ability to inspire others and leadership capability was the most important skill in the market. In Singapore, the top skill was people management and emotional intelligence.
Only Malaysian respondents said technical skills like coding and web development were the most important for the future.
A Pew Research poll conducted in May of 8,000 technology experts mirrored these results. The majority of respondents said that the most vital skills in the workplace of 2026 would be "hard-to-teach intangible skills like emotional intelligence and critical thinking".
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Source: http://www.bangkokpost.com/tech/local-news/1306335/survey-millennials-embrace-digitisation-skills