Künstliche Intelligenz macht es für alle Menschen einfacher, aber für die Menschen, die in den 1980er Jahren geboren wurden, wird es schwieriger.

Artificial intelligence is conquering all industries and changing the way we work and live.

Efficient tools simplify complicated tasks, help most people relieve the burden and increase efficiency, and enable them to comfortably enjoy the benefits of technology.

But in the general trend of reducing burdens, one generation has instead increased the pressure, and their steps are getting heavier. These are the people born in the 1980s, who always carry the burden and move forward.

As the backbone of the generations, they are already under the pressure of life, and the era of AI has further magnified the mid - life crisis.

I. Bearing the Burden from the Start: The People Born in the 1980s are a Burdened Generation

If we look at the growth paths of different generations, the situations are completely different.

The people born in the 1970s caught up with the development trends of the times and established themselves stably thanks to the reform dividends. The people born in the 1990s and 2000s grew up in a world with abundant materials and advanced technology and have a variety of choices. They can rest when they are tired and also have room for trial - and - error when they fail.

Only the people born in the 1980s are the "middle layer" between two generations. From youth to middle - age, they silently bear the burden.

The large group of people born in the 1980s in China is collectively in an existential crisis: "There are four elderly people above, a mortgage below, and lay - offs in the middle." They experienced a growth period with not very abundant materials and struggled on their own. During their youth, the real - estate price kept rising, and many spent their savings or even mobilized the strength of their whole family to buy a home.

Now, in middle - age, they are at the peak of life pressure.

Above them are their elderly parents, for whose old - age care and medical care they have to take care. Below them are their school - age children, and the education costs are constantly rising. In addition, there are the long - term mortgage and car loan, and the living expenses keep piling up.

As the pillars of the family, they don't dare to quit their jobs, get sick, or slack off. If there are gaps or problems in their lives, it is always them who take the responsibility.

The data shows that 67% of the people born in the 1980s regard "salary conditions and family responsibility" as the core motivation for their work. 71% can accept long - term overtime and strict working hours, and 43% suffer from work pressure and don't easily change their jobs. Almost a quarter of all employees work overtime almost every day. The people born in the 1980s and 1990s hold key positions such as core business and middle management. In particular, 49.6% of the middle managers born in the 1980s have to be available around the clock.

If we look at the consumption structure, the proportion of people aged 36 - 45 whose monthly expenses exceed 3,000 yuan is 55.8%. But most of these expenses go to rigid expenses such as mortgage, car loan, children's education, and medical care for the elderly. The proportion of consumption for personal pleasure is the lowest among all generations - not because they don't want to spend money on themselves, but because they have to weigh every yuan against the family's needs first.

This deeply - rooted sense of responsibility also extends to the daily leisure and consumption areas.

According to the "China Consumer Report 2024" by McKinsey, Chinese consumers (especially the middle - class as the pillars of the family) are "rational and pragmatic". They drastically reduce unnecessary expenses and prioritize meeting the basic needs of the family and expenses on education and health.

The trips of the people born in the 1980s mainly revolve around the family and children, not for their own relaxation. A vacation is just another place to continue taking responsibility. They have to take care of the health of the elderly and the preferences of the children during the whole trip, plan the route, arrange accommodation and meals, and handle various small things. Instead of relieving stress, the vacation brings them new worries.

The currently popular "loneliness economy" clearly shows the different living conditions of different generations.

Consumption forms such as dining alone, going to the movies alone, having private alone - time, and taking short trips alone are very popular among the young generation. A cross - national study published in the journal "PLOS ONE" in 2025, based on data from the World Values Survey, covers 71,169 respondents in 59 countries. It shows that age is one of the most significant factors for the probability of living alone - the younger the group, the higher the rate of living alone. This trend is evident in different cultural and institutional environments.

At the same time, the probability of living alone is also higher when the education level is higher, the income is lower, and the society is more individualistic. The young generation enjoys the freedom of alone - time and is willing to pay for their own emotions and experiences. However, the proportion of the people born in the 1980s in this consumption group is relatively low. It's not that they don't want to enjoy alone - time, but that they don't have the "right" to "loneliness" and "community" at all - the family structure with elderly parents and young children ties up their time and energy, and their lives are filled with the family. Being alone, resting, and living only for themselves is an illusion.

Before AI became widespread, they were already exhausted by the burden of life, the binding of their identity, and the compromises in consumption. And the technological change has added new weight to this exhaustion.

II. In the Era of AI, the People Born in the 1980s are the Most Disadvantaged Generation

The cruelest and most unfair thing about AI is that the people born in the 1980s are the generation that suffers the most and loses the most:

They are the main force in the emergence of the mobile Internet and the backbone in the workplace. They spent their youth in thousands of boring, mechanical, and repetitive execution tasks to accumulate experience, seniority, and routine. They regarded "repetitive work" as experience, as capital, and as the basis for their survival.

As soon as AI emerged, the experience accumulated over a decade, the achieved results, and the accumulated seniority suddenly lost their value, were set to zero overnight, and were directly replaced.

1. Loss of Experience: The Pioneers of the Mobile Internet Suffer the Greatest Structural Losses

The people born in the 1980s witnessed the golden age from the PC Internet to the mobile Internet.

As early as 2009, the data from CNNIC showed that the people born in the 1980s were the main force in surfing the Internet via mobile phones.

The Umeng Report in 2015 further confirmed that the people born in the 1980s were still the core force of the mobile Internet.

By December 2017, the data from QuestMobile showed that the people born in the 1980s accounted for 46% of all mobile users. In the same year, the number of new mobile users born in the 1980s increased by nearly 30 million.

From the early spread of smartphones, the outbreak of mobile payment, to the waves of mobile commerce, O2O, and content startups, the people born in the 1980s were always the first builders and executors.

The data from QuestMobile in 2021 also confirms that the people born in the 1980s and 1990s are still the main user group of the Chinese mobile Internet, with a number of 724 million.

However, the irony is that the digital world they built themselves is now being rapidly restructured by the new generation of artificial intelligence. The execution ability and the accumulated routines they were once proud of are quickly losing their value.

2. Loss of Experience: The Longest Working Hours, the Most Repetitions, and the Lowest Value

Over the years, the people born in the 1980s have written reports day by day, created text templates, processed simple designs, provided basic customer service, entered data, sorted documents, copied code, and checked content - not because they didn't try, but because all their efforts went into repetitive tasks that AI can replace best and most easily.

Previously, "long working hours = rich in experience, strong in ability, and irreplaceable". Now, AI can do in a few minutes or hours what the people born in the 1980s have repeated for a day, a week, or even years. AI works 24 hours a day, without errors and at almost zero cost.

The "repetitive experiences" that the people born in the 1980s have accumulated over a decade are worthless in the face of AI.

According to the "Report on the Trends of AI Use in the Workplace 2025" by Qiancheng Wuyou, 62.5% of the surveyed people born in the 1980s think that "job replacement" is the main long - term occupational threat, which is almost 9 percentage points more than that of the people born in the 2000s. Still, 51.1% of the people born in the 1980s predict that "the basic jobs in enterprises will be replaced by AI". The people born in the 2000s and 1995s account for 57.3% of the surveyed group in total. They tend to regard AI as an "efficiency booster" - the young generation learns to use AI from their first day at work. Essentially, they have no fear of being replaced by AI because they are a generation that coexists with AI.

Job replacement is not a distant prediction but an existing reality.

According to the analysis of the "Future of Jobs Report 2025" by the World Economic Forum, by 2030, 92 million jobs worldwide will be replaced by AI.

The penetration rate of generative AI in knowledge - based jobs has increased from 12% in 2020 to 37% in 2023 and has been accelerating since then.

The young generation has become familiar with digitalization from a young age, can quickly master AI, is more cost - effective, and has more room for trial - and - error. The advantages that the people born in the 1980s have accumulated in their later years have become disadvantages in reality - not because their abilities are poor, but because the rules of the times have changed, and they are in the most disadvantaged and uncomfortable position.

3. One - Person Company (OPC): From the Double - Innovation Initiative to the Era of AI - Two Cycles in Which the People Born in the 1980s were Caught up in the Entrepreneurship Wave

Under the catalysis of AI, a new organizational form is spreading worldwide - the one - person company.

The data from the European Union shows that the number of one - person companies in the EU reached over 18 million in 2024.

In China, this wave is even stronger: By June 2025, the number of one - person companies in China reached over 16 million, accounting for 27.4% of the total number of enterprises.

In the first half of 2025, the number of newly - established OPCs in China was 2.86 million, a 47% increase compared to the previous year and accounting for 23.8% of all newly - established enterprises.

The data published by the equity management platform Carta in 2025 shows that the proportion of new enterprises founded by individual entrepreneurs worldwide has increased from 23.7% in 2019 to 36.3% in the first half of 2025, corresponding to a 53% increase in six years. Every third newly - established company is a real "one - person team".

The "Global Artificial Intelligence OPC Model Business Insight Report 2026" published by the Yiou Think Tank systematically interprets the logic of the outbreak of OPCs and points out that the core is that "Individual + AI = Enterprise" - AI takes over a large number of standardized and repetitive tasks, while entrepreneurs focus on strategic decisions, creative design, and key innovations.

The report further shows that the emergence of AI has greatly reduced the dependence of entrepreneurship on capital and team size, so that individuals can complete tasks that were previously only possible through the cooperation of many people at minimal cost. This has caused the rapid growth of OPCs.

But the report also shows an unoptimistic reality: The OPC enterprises in China are still generally in the rising period. In the last three months, 53.8% of OPC enterprises had a turnover of 100,000 yuan or less, 30.8% had no turnover at all. Only 11.5% achieved a turnover between 100,000 and 500,000 yuan, and only 3.8% had a turnover between 500,000 and 1,000,000 yuan.

The easy - to - establish enterprise form of "light organization + strong system support" lowers the threshold for entrepreneurship, but for the people born in the 1980s, who need a stable cash flow for their family and have to bear very high trial - and - error costs, this path is much riskier than it seems at first glance.

But this entrepreneurship wave has another meaning for the people born in the 1980s.

As early as 2014, when the "Mass Entrepreneurship and Innovation" started, the people born in the 1980s were the absolute main force in the entrepreneurship wave.

The data shows that the proportion of the people born in the 1980s among the main entrepreneurs of enterprises at the beginning of the Double - Innovation Initiative was 61.2%. By 2018, the proportion of the people born in the 1980s in the entire entrepreneurial population was still 39%, which was the largest group of entrepreneurs in a certain age range. In small enterprises in Zhejiang and other regions, the proportion of the people born in the 1980s...