Jerome Powell to Gen Z: Don’t fear AI—master it

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell delivered a pointed message to the next generation of workers last week: Stop worrying about artificial intelligence and start learning how to use it.

Speaking before nearly 400 Harvard economics students in a wide-ranging conversation moderated by professor David Moss, Powell acknowledged that Gen Z is entering one of the more challenging job markets in recent memory—and said AI is both part of the problem and the solution.

Moss put Powell on the spot immediately, asking on behalf of the students in the room: “They’re entering into an uncertain time—an economy where new job formation is lower for many reasons. In particular, jobs that were plentiful a couple of years ago for students coming out of college are no longer so. And AI sits as this remarkable technological transformation that is both promising and existentially threatening.”

Powell said he and his colleagues at the central bank were “well aware of the current situation for students coming out. It’s a time of very low job creation. And also you have AI going on.” Allowing that something “more longer-term, more secular” is probably happening around technology and AI, he was direct: “There’s no denying it’s a challenging time to enter the labor market.”

Powell also cited shifts in immigration policy, along with the disruptive forces of new technology. But rather than counsel caution, he pointed students toward the tools disrupting their fu...