ChatGPT/Generative Artificial Intelligence and Employment Displacement: A Perspective Based on the Skill Supply and Demand of College University Students

Based on 2019 sample survey data of college graduates’ employment, this article performs an empirical investigation of the status of supply and demand for, and the characteristics of, college skills in the AI era, and the role and mechanisms of higher education in difficult to substitute core skills. The study found that: (1) there is a convergence phenomenon in the higher education skill supply in China, predominantly contributing easily substitutable knowledge and technical skills; the value enhancement of core capacities such as innovation and creativity, etc., is slow, leading to the emergence of an “inverted pyramid” phenomenon in which “double first-class” colleges are outstripped by higher vocational and technical colleges, and skills development in ordinary undergraduate colleges is the most seriously affected; (2) university students predict displacement risk on the basis of past competition rules, but AI has a “polarization effect” on employment. It is estimated that the occupations of “double first-class” college graduates will be more easily displaced by AI, but their sense of crisis is weaker, and they thereby face a greater risk of displacement; (3) college are still the main battlefields in which core skills are formed, with professional courses and tuition by teachers still making the greatest contribution to problem-solving and social collaboration skills, and interdisciplinary courses having the greatest impact on the value enhancement of innovation and creativity skills. It is recommended that colleges accurately define their talent cultivation position, reconstruct the content of education courses, ensure that students obtain high-level skills to adapt to new technological requirements, and achieve a transition from “passive” to “positively driven” labor market policy.