Interview #1

Allen Yang, the executive director of EECS (Electrical Engineering & Computer Science) department in UC Berkeley who is going to be the judge of UCB’s AI competition, hosted a live stream on June 28th, 2020, to discuss the prospect of AI technology and its influence on future generations.
Hundreds of people attended the live stream meeting, including parents and students from high school and college. They all showed their concerns over the unstoppable trend of AI technology engulfing potential jobs and changing our world to an unknown kingdom full of excitement and technophobia.
In the meeting, director Yang analyzed the developing trend of AI in two aspects. From the perspective of high school or college students, on one hand, the application of AI technology might replace traditional jobs such as bank cashiers, taxi drivers. On the other hand, the AI technology, according to director Yang, “could also be a useful tool in the era of adventure that those young adults are going to embark on.” From technology’s impact on the future, Yang mentioned that open-source culture and hardware development will be highly valued in the future technological field.
To sum up, in the foreseeable future, which could be in five years according to director Yang, the building of infrastructure will likely be handed over to AI, and instead of pursuing tedious labor work, people will be engaged in creative work (such as the brain-interface technology mentioned by director Yang). In other words, we, the millennials, have to face the fundamental revolution of market job structure that might take place when we graduate. And we need to think deliberately about what we should do to prevent us from being replaced by robots in the more competitive job markets.
By Jessie Zhao