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Singapore’s under-25s are the country’s biggest AI sceptics — and it has little to do with how comfortable they are using it
A survey of young Singaporeans finds enthusiasm cooling fastest among those most fluent with the tools. The worry is less “can I use it” than “what is it doing to my work”.
The assumption that younger Singaporeans would be the most uncritical adopters of AI does not survive contact with the data. In a recent survey, the under-25s were the most likely to express doubt — not about whether they could use the tools, which they overwhelmingly can, but about what those tools mean for the careers they are only just starting.
The scepticism is specific. Young respondents were less worried about access or capability and more worried about displacement, deskilling and the prospect of entering a labour market where the entry-level rung they were counting on has been automated away. Several framed it as a fairness question: the generation asked to learn the tools is also the one most exposed if the tools learn the job.
Educators and employers reading the survey see both a warning and an opportunity. The warning is that confident usage and quiet anxiety can coexist in the same person. The opportunity is that a sceptical user is often a careful one — and careful is exactly what you want from someone wielding a tool this powerful.
