2025: The year of questions

As we come closer to saying goodbye to the year 2024, what can we look forward to during the year 2025 (yes, I know, the standard question every end of the year)?

I remember when studying for my business degree, when writing a business plan, you look at (amongst other things) macro environmental factors and you draft a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats)-analysis.

One of the macro environmental factors is the political landscape.? And for the year 2025, there are many of these landscapes to consider. Let us look in our own backyard: what will a new government in Aruba do differently than the current sitting government. And if we look beyond our borders, what will the political landscape be in the USA after January 20, 2025, when President-elect Trump will commence a second term.

Looking at some of The Wall Street Journal headlines: “Germany Opened Its Doors to Migrants. Now It’s Struggling to Cope”, “Finland Seizes Russia-Linked Tanker After Undersea Baltic Cables Are Cut”, and “Trump Threatens to Take Control of Panama Canal, Greenland”, the question regarding what we can look forward to during the year 2025, becomes very real.

The political landscape, because of its magnitude, makes it difficult to determine if this will be a threat or an opportunity.

Another such factor is technology. Last year I briefly touched on the topic of Artificial Intelligence, but more as it relates to employment. ?Perhaps of equal importance is how AI is being used for less honorable purposes. Consider this:

Visa?said the number of charges on its credit-card network blocked for potential fraud on Black Friday and Cyber Monday surged 200% globally from last year. The increase was driven by scammers using AI.?Mastercard??said it blocked nine times the amount of fraud attempts between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday from a year ago.

?“It is absolutely a golden age for fraud and fraudsters,” said?Michael Jabbara, global head of fraud services at Visa. U.S. shoppers have lost $8.7 billion to fraud overall through this year’s third quarter, a 14.5% increase from the same period a year ago, according to the Federal Trade Commission.?

(source: The Wall Street Journal, How Scammers Are Using AI This Holiday Season to Steal Your Money, by Angel Au-Yeung, December 22, 2024)

AI can be a blessing and a curse.? However, it is still in its infant stages to really determine if it is a threat or an opportunity. One thing for sure, for those who have difficulties writing, Chat GPT is a blessing (and to be clear, this article was not written by using Chat GPT).

The last macro environmental factor we want to touch upon is demographics. The generation to be alarmed about the most is Gen Z. ?This is what Gen Z is about:

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Like every generation, Gen Z’s behaviors are shaped by how they grew up. Young people today have come of age in the shadow of climate doom, pandemic lockdowns, and fears of economic collapse. The earliest Gen Zers were born when the internet had just achieved widespread use. They’re called “digital natives”—the first generation to grow up with the internet as a part of daily life. The generation spans a wide range: the oldest Gen Zers have jobs and mortgages, while the youngest are still preteens. Globally, Gen Z is growing fast: Gen Zers will?make up a quarter of the population?of the Asia–Pacific region by 2025.

(source: McKinsey & Company, What is Gen Z?, August 28, 2024)

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But this is where it becomes interesting: when Gen Z meets AI. ?According to Jamie Parsons:

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Artificial intelligence will make work easier but less rewarding. A majority of Gen Z workers use AI tools such as ChatGPT and Otter.ai to complete difficult assignments and cut time-consuming minor tasks. But AI tools also disconnect Gen Z from their work.

The philosopher?John Locke?pointed out that something becomes your property when you mix your labor with it. Gen Z workers need to use their own labor to complete their assignments and take ownership of their work. If people lack such ownership, they will also lack satisfaction with its completion. With less rewarding work, workers are likely to feel less happy. This is why Gen Z workers have stress levels higher than that of any other generation, with 40% claiming they feel stressed all or most of the time, according to a Deloitte Global survey. Of those who are stressed, about a third attribute it to jobs and work/life balance. Overall, AI will make working easier, but it won’t make one happy. In the future, people will be slaves to AI, and no longer be owners of any work.

(source: The Wall Street Journal, AI and the Automation of Work for Gen Z, December 3, 2024)

So, is Gen Z a liability to our society? Will Gen Z be able to, for example, sufficiently contribute to the governmental pension reserve? Can you count on Gen Z as an employee? Will Gen Z be able to handle difficult tasks?

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We think it fitting to end this article in the same manner as we did with our article last year. We live in interesting times, or at least there is a saying similar to that phrase. ?However, by being aware of such challenges (at least what I believe are challenges) you can better prepare yourself. As Sun Tzu said in the Art of War:

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“The general who wins the battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought. The general who loses makes but few calculations beforehand.”

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