There is no shortage of hype around AI coming for jobs, and while the U.S. labor market has begun to sputter, hard evidence of AI-related job losses is scarce.
Geoffrey Hinton’s message on a recent podcast about artificial intelligence was simple: “Train to be a plumber.”
Hinton, a Nobel Prize-winning computer scientist often called “the Godfather of AI,” said in June what people have now been saying for years: Jobs that include manual labor and expertise are the least vulnerable to modern technology than some other career paths, many of which have generally been considered more respected and more lucrative.
“I think plumbers are less at risk,” Hinton said. “Someone like a legal assistant, a paralegal, they’re not going to be needed for very long.”
That’s an awesome take, finally someone with some experience and sense rather than “AI bad”.
That said, what’s realistically happening is one person who’s already in the industry is using AI, meaning that a new hire is no longer needed because their productivity increased.
What’s left for that computer science graduate that would have been the new hire that never happened? Blue-collar jobs indeed. There is much work to be done, just not the work that they had hoped for by going into +$80k in debt.
I don’t think juniors are going away. Maybe one less position or intern on a team. The thing is AI never gets any better, people do. Also a junior using AI might just be more productive while learning the core skills. A proposition I’m banking on by taking a new position leading a team and helping them leverage AI.
AI has absolutely gotten better by a significant amount over the last 2 years.
Different kind of better than I’m talking about.