Bad news, 30-somethings: You’ll likely never be truly AI native

• A former OpenAI robotics lead says engineers in their 30s aren’t truly AI native.
• Caitlin Kalinowski said young engineers use AI from the ground up and solve faster than older peers.
• Tech leaders from Reddit to LinkedIn say AI-native graduates have a growing edge at work.

Kalinowski’s comments also come amid growing anxiety that AI could hollow out entry-level tech jobs.

But Kalinowski sees a more nuanced future: smaller teams, not necessarily junior-less ones.

“I don’t see it that way,” she said, referring to fears that junior roles in tech firms could be made obsolete because of AI. “I think we need them.”

Kalinowski compared today’s AI-native generation to early internet natives who grew up alongside the web and smartphones, giving them an intuitive advantage older workers lacked.

“We have to accept that we’re not native in these new technologies,” she said of older engineers and tech workers adapting to AI later in life.