The high dynamics of changes in the socio-cultural environment under the influence of the digitalization of society and the introduction of artificial intelligence requires a timely study of emerging phenomena and problems for a quick and adequate response. Despite the fact that today, management decisions are made by representatives of the older generations, the near future will be shaped on the basis of the opinion of young people – generation Z (GenZ). The aim of the article was to study the nature of the impact of digitalization and artificial intelligence on the socio-cultural environment through the prism of the views of generation Z students. Research methods: a set of general scientific and special methods. The main empirical research methods were a sociological survey based on the online service Google Form, an in-depth interview, and a focus group using communication programs. The study was conducted with the involvement of Russian and Slovak students from GenZ, taking into account the restrictions associated with the COVID 19 pandemic. The sociological survey was conducted among students of 35 leading universities in Russia (n = 1881) and 2 universities in Slovakia n = 316 people. The selection of respondents was made by the “snowball” method through a chain of redirecting questionnaires to generation Z students and attracting additional subjects to the study. As a result of the study, it was found that the impact of digitalization and artificial intelligence on society is complex, contradictory and ambiguous, the depth and extent of the impact of which has not yet been studied. For the first time, the authors revealed the similarities and differences in the positions of Russian and Slovak students of GenZ in their various combinations. There was revealed a statistical significance between the factorial and effective signs (p <0.001) with a very high positive correlation. Pearson's correlation coefficient is in the range R = 0.973-9902. At the same time, 66% of Russian and 65% of Slovak GenZ believe that digitalization of society and AI will create favorable conditions for the training and development of youth, employment of university graduates; 55% of Slovak respondents (against 42% of Russian) believe that these processes will deepen social inequality in society. Risks of a decrease in human intellectual abilities have been identified against the background of digitalization and AI coverage of the entire social environment, but they have not yet reached their peak values. As a result, the main factors influencing the socio-cultural environment were formulated, the dependence in the triad system "student-teacher-university administration" was revealed: the longer distance education lasts in the context of the COVID 19 pandemic, the less students are willing to return to the offline format. The following trends were revealed: growth of some advantage of generation Z in employment in the context of digitalization and the introduction of artificial intelligence against the backdrop of the COVID 19 pandemic; reducing the time of interaction with the digital environment, monitor screens for rich people. The results obtained in the future are applicable to the development of the theory of digitalization and the use of artificial intelligence in the social environment, the upbringing of generation Z.
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