Oct 15, 2025

A personal reflection by Julia Main, Marketing Lead at Instruxi

Artificial Intelligence has arguably become the hot topic of this decade. 5 years ago most people had never heard of AI and now it is mentioned daily in the News and other media sources. It has become so ingrained within our daily tech in the last two years, that most people use it everyday without even knowing it. This software, which in many ways can think for itself, has become an invaluable tool for the average person. I know from personal experience how helpful artificial intelligence can be as a student and a professional, it helps automate the more mind numbing tasks of life in seconds.

In college, AI was a tool I could trust to help me get through the semester. It was extremely helpful in creating study guides, practice exams, and debugging the code I was working on. I could rely on it as a sort of study partner, a tool that helped me but still required my own capabilities for the final outcome in these scenarios, whether that was grades on tests or completed projects. As college progressed, I would hear in the news over and over that AI would start taking jobs. This would always confuse me because anyone who uses AI regularly knows that it often makes mistakes and needs constant prompting to do even regular tasks, like writing emails. AI was more like a classmate I studied with, not something to fear. In my head, I chalked up these warnings to hysteria and fear-mongering. These were the same people who believed in Y2K, I thought to myself. We have nothing to worry about.

Then came May, when I graduated from the best university in the world, UGA. (Go Dawgs). I had a job offer ready to go, exciting trips planned with friends, and a little bit of pocket change for the first time in my life. To quote the famous theme song of the show H2O, “The world was my oyster and I was the pearl.” My friends and I finally felt like the cool 20-something-year-olds we had always seen in movies and TV.

Fast forward five months to October 2025. Many of the friends I graduated with cannot find jobs because AI is taking them, and corporations are laying people off en masse and replacing them with AI. How has this technology shifted so quickly from a tutor and study partner to our competition in the workplace? The same tool that helped me pass my classes is now the reason my friends can’t start their careers. While thankfully I work for a smaller company of extremely smart people well-versed in AI, this is not the case for most of my peers. I watch as job postings that used to require entry-level humans now simply don’t exist, automated away before my friends even get a chance to apply. Not to mention when there are postings, usually over 500+ resumes are submitted, and then these companies use AI tools to scan through these resumes.

This weird tension between man versus machine that many people in my generation are experiencing reminds me of AlphaGo. AlphaGo was one of the first machine learning lessons I learned at UGA. Researchers at DeepMind created a computer that could play Go and learn as it played. For more context, Go is a Chinese strategy board game where players place black and white stones to control territory. This computer defeated world champion Lee Sedol in March 2016, winning four out of five games in a historic match that shocked the Go community. Lee Sedol admitted defeat, and the inventors of AlphaGo had just made history with their invention.

The cultural impact of this event has, in my opinion, influenced most people (whether they know it or not) to revere technology as a proficient problem-solving tool and an almost all-knowing being that we can turn to for answers. But this idea that machines are better than humans goes beyond board games now. Machines are now replacing us in the workplace. As AI begins to master entry-level jobs, young professionals are supposed to be able to compete at the next level. How can they accomplish this with no entry-level experience? There’s also another problem at hand, the ladder keeps moving. I wonder if, like AlphaGo, AI will learn how to master entry-level jobs and eventually climb the ladder to those next-step positions as well. What is stopping this from happening? Every time we think we’ve found safe ground, a job that requires human judgment, creativity, or emotional intelligence, AI seems to inch closer to replicating those skills too. Unlike Lee Sedol, people my age can’t just acknowledge defeat and walk away. We need to pay rent.

Thankfully, though, it seems the quick adoption of AI is biting companies in the behind. Deloitte Australia was forced to partially refund the government $290,000 after their report contained AI-generated errors, including fabricated references and invented quotes. Even the U.S. government has struggled with AI reliability. The Make America Healthy Again Commission’s report on children’s health was found to contain citations to nonexistent studies, including markers indicating AI was used to create them. These incidents highlight the serious risks of over-relying on AI for critical work without proper oversight. The same corporations that rushed to replace human workers with AI are now discovering that AI, without proper supervision, can make costly mistakes that damage their credibility and their bottom line. Perhaps this is the wake-up call we needed.

All of this to say, I do not think AI is evil and maliciously taking jobs from those who need them. I believe that it is an extremely powerful tool. As Spider-Man’s uncle once said, “With great power comes great responsibility.” What does responsibility for AI look like? Right now, I am not sure anyone has the answer to this question, but I have a pretty good idea that it starts with some regulations. Whether that is at a corporate level or government level, it is without a doubt true that we need some rules regarding AI. We need guardrails that protect workers while still allowing innovation, standards that ensure AI is used to enhance human work rather than eliminate it entirely. I think we should stop treating AI as an all-knowing problem-solving tool and use it for its intended purpose: automation and streamlining tasks like emails. AI should be our assistant, not our replacement, the study partner I had in college, not the competitor I and many others face in the job market.

Sources:

1. AlphaGo vs. Lee Sedol match details: https://www.deepmind.com/research/highlighted-research/alphago

2. Deloitte AI errors: https://fortune.com/2025/10/07/deloitte-ai-australia-government-report-hallucinations-technology-290000-refund/

3. MAHA report citation errors: https://www.science.org/content/article/trump-officials-downplay-fake-citations-high-profile-report-children-s-health