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The people left out of AI — I was unemployed once too

· Ascendy Engineering

TL;DR

About this piece. This isn’t a piece that pretends to know the answer — it’s closer to an honest question I’m putting out while unsure of the fix. After writing AI is leverage, this is a kind of conscience about the people who can’t grab that leverage. The friend here is generalized so as not to be identifiable.

A friend who won’t use it even for free

Talking with a friend who’s currently out of work, AI came up. They said they barely use it. No work occasion to use it, don’t feel much need, and grudge the subscription cost — so they use the free tier now and then, search-style.

Of course I didn’t brag “here’s how much I use it.” I just listened quietly, and one thought landed. The gap between me — employed, using AI at work, running it on my own dime — and this friend could widen even more in ten years.

Here’s what I almost missed. At first I thought “so it’s a money problem.” It wasn’t. They can actually use AI for free — the free tier exists. And they still don’t. Because — they have no reason to.

The barrier isn’t money — it’s a reason

This is the crux. AI is an enormously powerful tool when you’re doing something productive. Writing code, drafting documents, running analysis — it’s leverage when there’s work to do.

Flip it, and with no work to do, that power has nowhere to land. For someone out of work with no task to apply it to — and therefore no felt need — AI goes largely unused however cheap, even free. The barrier isn’t $20; it’s whether you have a reason to use AI at all.

So the gap splits somewhere deeper than “those who can pay the subscription vs. those who can’t.” Compounding accrues only to those with the occasion and will to use AI; for others, even free access doesn’t open a shut door.

This isn’t one person’s story

If it were just my one friend, it’d end as a personal anecdote. It doesn’t.

Korea’s “resting youth” — young people who report neither working nor job-hunting, just resting — hit 469,000 in January 2026, a five-year high. And the Bank of Korea, in one issue note, points to “AI-driven technological change and a preference for experienced hires” as among the structural factors worsening the youth labor market.

So AI works doubly here. On one side it shrinks the entry-level slots juniors would take (pushing youth out of the labor market); on the other it grows the productivity of those already working, as leverage. The distance between the pushed-out and the riding-on is, in effect, widened by AI from both sides.

I’ve been there too

I don’t want to write this as someone else’s problem. Because I’ve been inside it.

I studied for a high-stakes exam and failed, and then spent about half a year out of work. Looking back — the very desire to do something productive barely arose. However powerful a tool sat in front of me, free or paid, I had no reason to pick it up. Having been in that state, I know: how hollow “AI’s great, just try it” sounds to someone inside it.

So I won’t split this gap into “lazy vs. diligent.” That’s a story about a state, not about a person’s worth.

So what can be done — what pulled me out

So the real question is this. If access (free AI) isn’t the answer, what pulls a person out of that state? For me, there were two things.

First, a spark. Back when I was studying for that exam, I watched the 2016 match between AlphaGo and Lee Sedol. Just watching, the thought came: “building something like that would be fun.” Not a grand resolution — one small flicker of interest.

Second, an on-ramp. After failing and drifting as an out-of-work young man, while looking into “maybe I’ll become a developer,” I found the SC IT Master program at the Korea International Trade Association’s academy — a 20-plus-year government-funded course geared to IT employment in Japan (its graduates number in the thousands). A complete computer illiterate, I switched careers to developer there and even landed a job in Japan.

Here’s the point. What pulled me out wasn’t a cheaper AI. It was a reason to pick it up (the spark) and a structured path that carries a beginner to an actual job (the on-ramp). And only once that job existed did I get an occasion to use AI at all. The order is reversed — not the tool first, but the reason first.

Honestly — I don’t have the answer

That doesn’t mean I know the fix. Can sparks be created? Can on-ramps be widened? Probably, somewhat. But you cannot hand someone the will itself. Scatter the tool for free, and those without the drive to try something won’t use it much. I was one of them.

So this piece closes on a question, not an answer. If AI is tilting toward accelerating the gap, what we can touch is probably upstream of access — the spark and the on-ramp. Making people a reason to use it. That’s harder than handing out cheap tools, which is exactly why I can’t offer a tidy answer.

One thing is clear, though. I’m standing on the side that holds this leverage, and on the other side are people like I once was. Pretending not to see that, and writing only “AI is the best tool,” felt dishonest.

Takeaways

Honestly this is a record of discomfort, not a solution. But if I’m going to write about using AI as time leverage, honesty means also writing about the people who can’t grab that leverage.

Authorship & citation: Written by Ascendy Engineering; quotable with attribution. Found something wrong? Let us know via a GitHub issue.

Tags: ai, inequality, career, society, opinion, future-of-work