The Workers Opting to Retire Instead of Taking On AI

[question everything]

(snip)

After rising for decades and then hovering around 40% in the 2010s, the share of Americans over 55 years old in the workforce has slipped to 37.2%, the lowest level in more than 20 years. The financial cushion of rising home equity and stock-market returns is driving some of the decline, economists and retirement advisers say.

But for some older professionals, money is only part of the equation. They say they don’t want to spend the last years of their career going through the tumult of AI adoption, which has brought new tools, new expectations and a lot of uncertainty.

(snip)

In an AARP survey last summer of 5,000 people 50 and over, 25% of those who planned to retire sooner than expected counted work stress and burnout as factors. About half of those retired said they had left work at least partly because they had the financial security to do so.

In general, older Americans are less likely than younger counterparts to use AI, research shows. About 30% of people from ages 30 to 49 said they used ChatGPT on the job, nearly double the share of those 50 and older, according to a 2025 Pew Research Center survey of more than 5,000 adults.

Baby boomers and members of Generation X also experienced the sharpest declines in confidence using AI technology, according to a ManpowerGroup survey of more than 13,900 workers in 19 countries.

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https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/the-workers-opting-to-retire-instead-of-taking-on-ai-3400fb92?st=LBkgeB&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

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[CentralMass]

1. Some are having the decision made for them

[Redleg]

5. Good point. There will be disruption and it will affect many people.

I get a bit tired of hearing from the Tech Bros how cool AI is and how transformative it will be. Perhaps it will be both but not without a great deal of pain for a lot of people. As a university professor I can see how it is already changing the landscape of higher education, some for the better and some for the worse.

[Johnny2X2X]

2. We in our 50s are all desperately trying to join the investor class

The AI revolution is making it so I am developing contingency plans to be able to live off my investments a little sooner.

I still think AI is amazing as a tool and am excited to see what we use it for, I don't see it as being this massive jobs killer that some do, but there is always a risk of the worst case scenarios, and the quicker I can leave the job force, the less risk.

[Javaman]

3. this is me. My job is primed to be replaced by AI

as soon as a whiff hits my nose, I file my papers.

[gulliver]

4. There's no getting out of the boat we're all in with AI.

We need to be planning some degree of orderly shift to AI taking up more and more work. We need to plan for labor abundance and plan it in a way that it translates to human abundance. We shouldn't be competing with AI and panicking about having to compete with it. We should be figuring out how we transfer BS and dangerous work onto AI in a way that lets "everyone retire" or lighten our workload while improving our standard of living.

Retired people and tradespeople are in the same boat with blue- and white-collar workers who face "competition" from AI, whether they know it or not. If trades work is all that is available, workers in other areas will shift to trades. Retired people rely on Social Security, Medicare, and retirement savings, but all of those would be under extreme pressure in a laissez-faire, "just let AI eat everybody's jobs" scenario.

I still don't see anyone really doing that kind of thinking. We could start, for example, with taxing AI (and, in fact, any automation). The Democrats "should" have standing to help make things better for everyone. Our problem is we are still way too vulnerable to being derailed by sweetie pie posing and spittle-dripping tantrums over non-core issues. I see some improvements in this area, but I would feel better if we just went back to kitchen table issues solely for a while.

[question everything]

7. A side effect of reducing jobs is that fewer contribute to Social Security and Medicare

squeezing the funds further.

[Maninacan]

6. Digital in general

I retired during the pandemic from Tool and Die trade. Was sick of cameras in the workplace. Was just always aware of them. Production all had to use tablets to log work. I was exempt from most work requiring logins. I did like the CNC machine tools and programming them. Now i just hate using any kind of internet for medical banking and other. Something goes wrong and i gotta mess around half a day to figure it. Used 5 different ways to make a medical appt. with no luck yet. Bank login has been in a password loop? for 6 months and i don't give a shit about fixing it. I travel and stay in state campgrounds or national parks and have not once successfully reserved a campsite using online reservation . Probably 50 tries over 8 yrs. Today My frigging samsung phone said it's message thing was switching to google so i went thru that and got another freakin number to write down or keep track of.