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usn90

Original Poster:

2,036 posts

99 months

Yesterday (21:48)
quotequote all
My sons in his last year of high school, we have an open event coming up at a collage he likes the look of, however he’s stumped as to what courses to take a look at, he’s concerned about A.I and its impact on jobs moving forwards in life.


He’s asked me for my advice and to be honest I’ll a little unsure myself, Electricians, plumbing, carpentry would be a safe bet I’d have thought, but to be honest I don’t see him In this line of work, possibly electrician.

I do feel sorry for him as he has great interest in I.T, but I can see that job market being over saturated as A.I improves.

I’m not asking for advice on what he should do as that’s ultimately for him to decide, but is anyone else in this position with their children?

miniman

30,021 posts

291 months

Yesterday (22:08)
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A couple of thoughts.

Technological advances are always going to cause people to wonder whether their jobs will exist in the future. If you showed 1990s Excel to an accountant from the 1950s they’d likely have had similar worries about where their job would go. Ditto showing a 1980s Amstrad word processor to someone in the steno pool. So it’s about being adaptable and capable of embracing change.

Then, getting value from AI requires 2 things in my view. Firstly the ability to write effective prompts, and secondly the ability to critically review the outputs and determine whether they are plausible. A great deal of what AI spits out is in my experience horsest or at very least dubious so being able to validate and interpet is crucial.

The sectors you’ve called out are arguably less susceptible to catastrophic disruption but adaptability is still probably the most important ability in my view. Imagine a 1950s electrician fitting a cloud enabled EV charger.

Just my $0.02

smithyithy

7,898 posts

147 months

usn90 said:
he has great interest in I.T, but I can see that job market being over saturated as A.I improves.
Cyber Security

The jiffle king

7,486 posts

287 months

There are some other IT jobs which I think will remain, but I do think that people will need to know how to code even though AI may do the majority. The roles will be more functional ones e.g.
Enterprise Architect
Solution Architect
Functional Analyst
Cyber (particularly around training and education)

Odd pockets of other roles will also apply e.g. VIP helpdesk service

The thing is that the pace of change is so great that it's hard to look too far out. What I am sure of is that if you cannot use AI in your role, you will be replaced by people who are more efficient by using AI

WH16

8,423 posts

247 months

The way I look at it (with two teens & a toddler) is that if AI becomes so prevalent that it replaces all human workers then there will need to be some kind of universal income, or perhaps the elimination of money all together - in which case career prospects are no longer a concern. If not, then there will still be plenty of jobs, just potentially with the reduced soul-crushing paper-shuffling admin.

I'm still not convinced AI or robotics will be advanced enough to do the physical aspects of my job. The admin stuff yes, but the rest of it means I should at least survive 15-20 years until retirement.

But we may well have all been wiped out by then anyway.

BoRED S2upid

21,040 posts

269 months

Do what he enjoys with half an eye on future jobs IMO.

AI is worried about itself at the moment. I can see it being reigned in a lot in the future on many grounds it’s very power hungry and polluting.