As the artificial intelligence tide sweeps across the globe, fundamentally overhauling the job market, public anxiety is palpable. When the world embraces AI wholesale, how exactly should we navigate this shift, and what place remains for young graduates just stepping into the arena? Three recent, powerful voices — Nvidia founder Jensen Huang, University of Pennsylvania psychologist Angela Duckworth, and Pope Leo XIV — have collectively offered a profound and multidimensional reminder.

Speaking at Carnegie Mellon University’s commencement, Huang told graduates that no other generation had entered the world with such powerful tools and immense opportunities, noting that AI is completely resetting the boundaries of computing. Past experience and technological moats may no longer guarantee an edge but the greatest asset of young people is adaptability. Thus, “AI is unlikely to replace you, but someone who knows how to use AI better than you probably will.” Those who master collaboration with AI will be far more competitive; embracing AI is not optional — it is mandatory. In the AI age, young people must strike first, not wait to be acted upon.

Professor Duckworth demonstrated what wise AI adoption looks like. She openly admitted to using AI to help draft her speeches — but strictly as a writing coach, not a ghostwriter. AI gave her a level of depth she could not have reached alone. Yet she repeatedly stressed that although students now have global knowledge at their fingertips, they need more teacher guidance, not less. Quoting her own mentor, she said: “The knowledge in the library is free, but you must bring your own vessel.” Without a well-shaped vessel — our mind and intellect — capable of understanding and applying knowledge, information merely passes through like smoke. Genuine human connection is something AI cannot replicate: it can offer answers, but not the joy of “I did it”; it can simulate care, but it cannot truly love you. She also pointed out that human willpower is sometimes overrated; building the right environment is often the surer path to success. For the AI generation, this means constructing structural safeguards, rather than relying solely on personal self-control to resist AI’s allure.

In his first encyclical, Magnificent Humanity, Pope Leo warned that technological development must not be driven solely by speed, efficiency, and profit. He contrasted two biblical narratives: the Tower of Babel, symbolizing technology pursued for power and uniformity — which ultimately led to division — and Nehemiah’s rebuilding of the walls, representing cooperation and listening. AI must not become a new Babel through which a few dominate society; instead, it should repair human bonds. He cautioned that if efficiency and optimization become the sole yardstick for everything, people will be reduced to data and labor, stripped of their dignity as subjects. The Pope’s call to “disarm” AI does not mean halting its progress, but resisting its placement within a logic of power rivalry. AI should never be equated with human intelligence, and must serve humanity, not dominate it. He expressly stated: “Technology itself is not evil, but it is never neutral either, for it carries the traits of its designers, regulators, corporations or users.” This echoes a case in the United States in which families of the 2025 Florida State University shooting victims sued OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman; the company admitted the gunman had revealed his attack planning in earlier ChatGPT conversations, yet no “red-flag alert” system was in place — and tragedy ensued. AI has no body, experience, conscience, nor moral responsibility. Nevertheless, firms must proactively design red-flag systems for early warning and effective intervention, rather than allowing profits to routinely override user safety.

Human initiative, connection, and conscious awareness are the most precious assets of the AI era. Achieving this requires a concerted societal effort

Synthesizing these insights, young people in the AI era occupy at least three distinct positions.

First, become AI’s driver — proactively learn to use it as your competitive advantage, staying in the pilot’s seat rather than the passenger’s. Second, forge your own vessel — sharpen your critical thinking, build authentic human relationships, and proactively shape supportive environments as structural safeguards. Third, become an angel designer — actively engage in responsible design, scrutinize AI outputs, demand transparency and accountability, and ensure that development is not dictated solely by speed, efficiency, profit or national competition, but is bound by ethics, law and the public good — so that when ethical risks emerge, stakeholder vigilance is heightened, red lights flash immediately, and positive guidance prevails.

AI can be a coach, but it cannot run for you; it can provide knowledge, but it cannot think for you; it can simulate care, but it cannot truly love you. Human initiative, connection, and conscious awareness are the most precious assets of the AI era. Achieving this requires a concerted societal effort. Relying solely on platforms’ self-restraint may be naive. We need effective government regulation, deterrent penalties for platforms, rigorous adherence to environmental, social, and governance principles throughout corporate development, and enhanced digital literacy for every individual. Only through multilayered intervention, adaptive legislation, and ethics embedded from the design stage can AI become a true angel serving humanity and society. Otherwise, we risk unleashing a monstrous force beyond control — inflicting irreversible damage on the entire trajectory of human development.

Paul Yip is a chair professor (population health) of the Social Work and Social Administration Department of the University of Hong Kong. Florence Cheung is a senior teaching consultant at the Hong Kong Jockey Club Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention at the University of Hong Kong.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.