(Source: People’s Forum Network 2026-05-06)

On the occasion of the May 4th Youth Day, General Secretary Xi Jinping wrote back to representatives of the winners of the Chinese Youth May 4th Medal and New Era Youth Pioneer Award, pointing out that this year is the beginning of the “15th Five-Year Plan” and it is the right time for young people to make contributions. At present, artificial intelligence is injecting strong momentum into China's modernization with unprecedented power. Faced with the accelerated iteration of technology, the younger generation has developed a skills exchange phenomenon. A survey among young people showed that 92.4% of the respondents were interested in trying to exchange skills with others, and 73.9% of the young people interviewed believed that skills exchange would become a new way of socializing for young people. In the era of artificial intelligence, what are the new characteristics of youth skill improvement? How to support youth skills development? It is recommended to read the latest article by Su Lifeng, a researcher at the National Institute for Opening-up at the w88 casino, in the People's Forum.

Core point:

The improvement of youth skills in the era of artificial intelligence presents four distinctive characteristics: the change of concept from competition with artificial intelligence to collaboration with artificial intelligence; the structural reshaping from a single skill to a combination of skills; the shift from a single standard to a competency-based evaluation; and the time extension from staged learning to lifelong learning.

Looking forward to the “15th Five-Year Plan”, we need to adhere to the principles of fairness, unity, and sustainability, continue to promote institutional innovation, technological innovation, and governance innovation, and weave a tight safety net for youth skills improvement to lay a solid foundation for all people to move towards common prosperity.

The motivation for skills exchange is the deep shift in young people’s learning needs

The rise of skills exchange is a proactive response by young people to the dilemma of the traditional learning model under the macro background of artificial intelligence reshaping the employment structure. It is a repair and replacement of the structural contradiction between the formal education system and the rapidly changing labor market. Behind this phenomenon, it reflects the deep-seated shift in young people’s learning needs.

Reduce learning costs and cope with the real pressure of accelerated skill iteration.For many young people, after entering the workplace, their learning content often revolves around professional needs, and the expansion of personal interests is often restricted by time and money. Skills exchange starts the learning journey at zero economic cost. This low-cost, low-pressure learning method exactly meets the practical needs of mastering a variety of skills in the context of accelerated technological iteration. When a single skill faces the risk of being replaced, building a composite competency structure through diversified learning becomes a rational choice for young people to cope with uncertainty. It is worth noting that the cost advantage of skill exchange is not only reflected in the economic level, but also in terms of time and opportunity costs. In the formal education system, learners often need to invest a fixed amount of time to complete a set course, but in skills exchange, the learning pace is negotiated and agreed upon by both parties, and can be flexibly adjusted according to their respective work and life arrangements. This on-demand learning model is highly consistent with the trend of shortening the half-life of knowledge in the era of artificial intelligence. According to a World Economic Forum report, by 2030, technological progress and macroeconomic changes will drive the creation of 170 million jobs, and at the same time, the number of jobs that will be replaced will reach 92 million. There are significant time lags and mismatch problems in the conversion of old and new jobs. In this context, low-cost, high-frequency, and flexible learning models are becoming rigid needs.

Rebuilding deep connections and responding to social anxiety in the digital age.Contemporary young people generally face superficial interactions of “following, commenting, and liking” on social media, which means frequent exchanges in form but a lack of deep connections in substance. Skill exchange provides a variety of options from shallow interaction to deep companionship. According to a survey, 81.4% of respondents born after 2000 and 79.1% of those born after 1995 recognized skills exchange. The key to why skill exchange can become a catalyst for deep social interaction lies in its unique interactive structure. Participants have dual identities of teaching and learning, and their equal role status makes communication more natural and smooth. During the teaching process, knowledge output brings a sense of value and achievement; during the learning process, knowledge input brings a sense of growth and satisfaction. This two-way interactive relationship is stronger and more real than general communication on the Internet. Skill exchange helps young people break through existing social circles of acquaintances, reconstruct new social networks based on interests and hobbies, and find interpersonal warmth. At a time when artificial intelligence is intensifying social networking, this relationship based on joint learning and mutual assistance has unique emotional value and social significance.

Return to the true nature of learning and transcend the pursuit of utilitarian values.It should be pointed out that skill exchange is conducive to returning to the original fun of learning. Skill exchanges formed spontaneously based on learning interests are more likely to stimulate and maintain intrinsic learning motivation. When artificial intelligence can replace a large amount of programmed and standardized knowledge output, the meaning of human learning is shifting from "acquiring established knowledge" to "exploring unknown possibilities." The exchange of niche skills for “useless things” is a vivid reflection of this change in learning outlook. In addition, skill exchange participants often establish connections through common interests and hobbies. This kind of interest-oriented learning community has higher stickiness and activity. Interest-driven rather than utility-driven learning can better stimulate the concentration and investment required for deep learning, and can also cultivate creativity and emotional resonance that are difficult to replace with artificial intelligence.

New characteristics of youth skill improvement in the era of artificial intelligence

If we examine the phenomenon of skill exchange in the context of artificial intelligence reshaping the employment structure, we can find that the improvement of youth skills in the artificial intelligence era presents four distinctive characteristics. These characteristics are not only the passive adaptation of young people to technological changes, but also the active actions of young people to actively plan for future development.

The shift in philosophy from competing with artificial intelligence to collaborating with artificial intelligence.This transformation profoundly reveals the nature of skill improvement in the era of artificial intelligence, that is, artificial intelligence does not replace everyone, but people who do not use artificial intelligence. National policies will more clearly position artificial intelligence and digitalization as enabling tools, and fiscal funds will also be tilted towards human-machine collaboration and skill-enhancing technology applications, rather than simply rewarding automation solutions that reduce staff and increase efficiency. These policy directions echo the emerging demand for artificial intelligence in skills exchanges, and jointly point to the future of human-machine collaboration.

Restructuring from a single skill to a combination of skills.In the context that artificial intelligence can efficiently complete programmed tasks, the competitiveness of a single skill is weakening. Currently, new professions such as human-computer interaction engineers, model administrators, and AI ethicists are constantly emerging. The main feature of these new positions is their complexity, which requires practitioners to understand both technology and ethics, be familiar with business and master tools, and be experts in a certain field and have cross-border integration capabilities. Young people have a higher pursuit of building a composite competency structure. They are no longer satisfied with a single dimension of professional development, but enhance their professional resilience and adaptability through a combination of diverse skills. This T-shaped talent training concept with one specialty and multiple abilities, with both depth and breadth, is becoming the self-development practice of young people.

The shift from single standard to competency-based evaluation.The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security proposed to implement a series of special trainings to improve skills in new productivity fields such as artificial intelligence, low-altitude economy, new energy vehicles, and intelligent construction. This shows that at the policy level, competency certification is breaking through the traditional academic framework and moving towards a more flexible and targeted evaluation system. In skill exchange, the value orientation of not judging heroes based on certificates echoes this. Participants valued “what I experienced” and “what new knowledge I learned” rather than obtaining a single certificate. This decentralized ability formation and evaluation mechanism is becoming a useful supplement to the formal education system. In fact, students' performance in knowledge understanding and basic application related to artificial intelligence is acceptable, but they are relatively weak in assessing creativity and ethical risks. This shows that most students still regard artificial intelligence as a quick tool to complete tasks and lack in-depth thinking about its principles, limitations and social impact. This phenomenon reminds us that the ability-based evaluation cannot stop at the level of "can you use tools", but needs to go deep into the higher-order dimension of "can you think critically and apply creatively".

The time extension from stage learning to lifelong learning.In the context of accelerated technological iteration, it is necessary to accelerate the establishment of personal lifelong professional skills accounts, promote the "micro-certification + credit bank" model, realize the accumulation and transformation of training results across institutions and regions, encourage leading enterprises and vocational schools to jointly build "AI transformation training bases", and carry out "order-based" and "project-based" job transfer training. The "learning after get off work" and "mutual teaching on weekends" in skills exchange are the concrete manifestation of the concept of lifelong learning from policy texts to daily practice. For example, Wuhan Software Engineering Vocational College and Wuhan Artificial Intelligence Research Institute jointly established a multi-modal artificial intelligence technology innovation center for vocational education to explore new paths for the integrated development of "AI + vocational skills training". In the field of intelligent manufacturing teaching, students do not need to rely on physical machine tools. They can complete process exploration, code design and effect verification through the artificial intelligence virtual simulation system, which not only improves learning efficiency, but also significantly reduces teaching costs, achieving safe training and efficient learning.

Building a skills ecosystem from skills exchange to lifelong learning

Although skill exchange has the advantage of flexibility and convenience, its limitations cannot be ignored. Fragmented knowledge and skill sharing can easily lead to disordered learning, causing some young people to excessively pursue convenience, practicality and superficial knowledge, while neglecting the mastery of systematic, structural and classic knowledge. If this continues, it may weaken in-depth thinking and insight. For example, artificial intelligence education cannot just stay at the operational level of "how to click buttons", but needs to focus on the cultivation of thinking "how to think about problems" to avoid the formation of technology dependence, accelerate the construction of a hierarchical and advanced artificial intelligence literacy curriculum system, and promote the in-depth integration of learning and application. This raises a key proposition: organically combine the folk wisdom represented by skills exchange with the systemic advantages of the formal education system to build a future-oriented skills ecosystem.

On the one hand, the formal education system needs to learn from the flexibility of skills exchange to improve market response speed.There is a mismatch between the supply of talent training in colleges and universities and market demand, which is an important reason why young people choose to exchange skills. To this end, it is necessary to accelerate the construction of interdisciplinary courses in the field of higher education, promote the transformation of scientific research paradigms, and optimize talent training goals and competency quality models; in the field of vocational education, build a human-computer collaboration modular curriculum system and practical training system to enhance practical and application capabilities. This means that the education system needs to establish a more sensitive market perception mechanism, shorten the curriculum development cycle, and allow teaching content to resonate with the industry frontier. For example, the "Guidelines for the Application of Artificial Intelligence in Vocational Schools" released in 2025 require vocational schools to cooperate in depth with industry enterprises, combine the intelligent development needs of artificial intelligence-related industries and traditional industries, establish a dynamic database of skills needs for the three-party linkage of "industry-enterprise-w88 casino", sort out the artificial intelligence ability requirements and professional quality requirements of typical jobs, and jointly formulate, regularly update and improve professional talent training plans based on the Ministry of Education's "Vocational Education Professional Teaching Standards". This dynamic iteration mechanism is exactly the institutional innovation needed by the formal education system.

On the other hand, skills exchange needs to benchmark the standardization of formal education and improve the level of system integration.The advantages of skills exchange are flexibility, accuracy, and low cost, while the shortcomings are fragmentation, superficiality, and unsustainability. To move skills exchange from "early adopters" to "deep cultivation", it is necessary to introduce a systematic learning framework and quality assurance mechanism. The explorations of some grassroots communities and public welfare organizations are worthy of attention: Kongjiang Road Street Community in Yangpu District, Shanghai continues to carry out skills exchange public welfare classes, attracting a large number of young people to participate; Yulong Community in Dalian City, Liaoning Province has set up a "Yulong Skills Database" registration point to establish a dynamically updated community talent map. These practices show that on the basis of free market-style skills exchange, organizational guidance and institutional support can be superimposed.

We need to be vigilant that skills exchange may also induce new digital divide risks. Some participants try to iteratively upgrade their personal skills through continuous exchange, while some groups may find it difficult to integrate into the knowledge sharing cycle due to difficulties in monetizing their skills. This means that promoting the healthy development of skills exchange cannot rely solely on spontaneous market regulation, but also requires active guidance from all sectors of society to provide fair opportunities for display and exchange of various skills. From skill exchange to lifelong learning, it is not a simple substitution of paths, but the integration and symbiosis of diverse paths. Between the formal education system and private self-organized learning, between systematic learning and fragmented learning, between utilitarian learning and interest-based learning, it is necessary to seek a dynamic balance to build a diverse, open, and inclusive skills ecosystem, and then promote the construction of a networked, digital, and personalized lifelong learning system.

Practical path to systematically support youth skill development

The rise of skills exchange provides policymakers with a window of observation. It reveals the current real skills improvement needs of young people and highlights the shortcomings of the existing support system. Combined with practice, a policy framework to systematically support youth skills development can be constructed from the following four levels.

Establish a national-level employment risk monitoring and skills demand early warning system.Relevant departments can jointly build a national-level dynamic monitoring platform for the impact of artificial intelligence on employment, focusing on manufacturing, finance, logistics, customer service and other industries, real-time assessment of job replacement rates and skills gap index, and issuing red, yellow and blue three-level early warnings to provide local governments and enterprises with time windows for policy intervention.

Build a high-frequency monitoring system covering job changes, skill supply and demand, and employment quality, and unify the statistical caliber and data base; establish early warning thresholds and policy triggering rules for industries and regions to achieve early detection, early intervention, and early regulation; embed "employment-friendly" indicators into industrial policies and financial capital assessments to promote the coordinated development of technological innovation and high-quality employment. This kind of precise policy implementation based on data is a basic project to systematically support the development of youth skills.

Implement pre-assessment and process monitoring for enterprises’ large-scale deployment of artificial intelligence to replace manual labor. Enterprises of a certain scale can be required to submit an employment impact assessment report to the competent authority before implementing a large-scale artificial intelligence replacement plan, including the number of affected positions and personnel composition, replacement timetable, personnel placement measures and retraining plans, etc. For plans that may trigger regional employment fluctuations, the competent authorities may require enterprises to adjust the implementation pace or strengthen supporting resettlement measures.

Build a vocational skills training system for the era of artificial intelligence.Promote the upgrade of the vocational skills training system, incorporate "artificial intelligence literacy" into various professional qualification evaluation systems, promote curriculum reform in vocational schools and training institutions, open practical courses such as artificial intelligence tool application and human-machine collaboration, and establish a rapid update mechanism for training content. From formulating standards and developing courses, to shaping students' core AI capabilities and ethical judgment, to improving evaluation methods, under the concept of integrating industry and education, we will cultivate highly skilled talents who are not only proficient in AI technology, but also able to flexibly apply and innovate in complex occupational scenarios, and who have good human-machine collaboration capabilities, awareness of professional norms, and lifelong learning abilities. At the same time, we will promote "order-based" integrated industry-education training and skill certification, encourage leading enterprises, vocational schools, and training institutions to jointly build practical training bases and jointly develop courses, and promote the direct model of learning, certification, and employment.

Improve the institutional supply and social security for new employment forms.As artificial intelligence gives rise to new employment forms such as super individuals and one-person companies, the problem of lagging institutional supply has become increasingly prominent. There are more than 200 million people in flexible employment in our country, and workers in the new employment form are an important force among them. Protecting the legitimate rights and interests of this group is related to people's livelihood and well-being. The "labor economic rights and interests of non-standard labor relationship groups" can be included in the legal field of public interest litigation for procuratorial work, and legislation can be used to protect the rights and interests of workers in new employment forms.

The problem of lack of social security for flexible employment groups in my country is more prominent, and the root cause is the over-bundling of social security and labor relations. Therefore, it is necessary to build a hierarchical and classified social insurance security system: full-time social security coverage for full-time employees on the platform; for part-time employees, the platform is required to pay work-related injury insurance or guide the purchase of commercial insurance for those who work more than 20 hours a week; relying on blockchain technology, establish a national unified pension insurance transfer information platform to break information barriers and achieve "one network" for social security inter-provincial continuity. At the same time, with the orientation of low-cost compliance, one-stop service, and sustainable development, we will optimize the registration and compliance process for micro business entities, improve tax rules and inclusive financial support for one-person companies, and improve the social security transfer and occupational injury protection system for flexible employment personnel. Deeply integrate the protection of the rights and interests of new employment groups with grassroots governance, and convert the participation of new employment groups in community services into points through mechanisms such as the social governance points system, which can be used to redeem rights such as vocational skills training and medical examinations.

Promote the universalization of productivity tools and lower the threshold for using artificial intelligence tools.Through subsidies for computing power and software services, the threshold for using artificial intelligence tools will be lowered and the innovation vitality of the whole society will be stimulated. When the artificial intelligence tools themselves become a necessary condition for skill formation, the acquisition cost of the tools becomes a key variable affecting the fairness of opportunities. Promoting the universalization of computing power and artificial intelligence tools, allowing more young people to have the opportunity to access, learn, and control cutting-edge technologies, is an important guarantee for achieving equal opportunities for skill development.

It is necessary to organize a dedicated team that cooperates with vocational schools, industry enterprises, research institutions and other parties to help the sustainable development of the large model of the vocational education industry (professional). Guide educational technology companies to share computing resources, promote the establishment of regional artificial intelligence computing centers, realize resource sharing among institutions, and combine open source basic large models to build industry (professional) large models that meet the needs of vocational education. Guide leading enterprises to actively provide industry knowledge and skills corpus to increase the industry adaptability of large models. At the same time, it is necessary to promote the nationwide improvement of artificial intelligence skills and literacy, incorporate it into the national employment priority strategy, and establish a special fund; promote the four-in-one model of "job demand + skills training + skills evaluation + employment services", and w88 casino-enterprise jointly build industrial colleges and training bases. The systematic nature of the above-mentioned measures lies in expanding skills improvement from a simple training issue to a full-chain policy system covering monitoring and early warning, education and training, institutional guarantees, and tool support.

Technological development is to serve people and create a better life, rather than simply replacing human power and exacerbating social anxiety. The rise of skills exchange is a positive response from the younger generation in the process of accelerated technological iteration. It meets diversified learning needs and deep social desires in a low-cost, low-threshold way, reflecting the emergence of a new skill formation mechanism in the era of lifelong learning in which "everyone can learn, can learn anywhere, and can learn at any time". However, we cannot expect this spontaneous social exploration to solve all problems. Systematically supporting the development of youth skills in the era of artificial intelligence requires the joint efforts of governments, enterprises, schools, and society. It requires top-level design at the policy level, proactive changes in the education system, institutional innovation in social security, and the responsibility of platform enterprises. The United Nations Development Program estimates that if a country reduces the proportion of young people who drop out of w88 casino prematurely or lack basic skills by 10%, the country's GDP will increase by 1% to 2% per year. But what is more important than economic value is that every young person can find his or her own place in the wave of technological change, so that technological progress and human development can go in the same direction and achieve mutual success. Looking forward to the "15th Five-Year Plan", only by adhering to the principles of fairness, unity, and sustainability and continuing to promote institutional innovation, technological innovation, and governance innovation can we tightly knit the safety net of youth skills improvement and pave a solid and warm road of happiness for all people to move toward common prosperity.

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