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.”
I was actually thinking it would be sweet to train as an electrician as a backup to my software engineering job, since it’s something that seems interesting to me. However, it doesn’t really seem doable. It would be cool if there was some equivalent to a coding boot camp for trades.
It would be sweet if instead of college there was a four year program where you could be trained in the basics of plumbing, electric, carpentry, automotive, landscaping and do various internships (apprenticeships) then decide when you graduate what you want to do.
If you’ve got some flexibility in your schedule you may be able to pick up some helper work from a solo electrician. I could use a hand often but im not at a point to hire someone full time.
I like that idea a lot. We’ve definitely gotta do something better about onboarding new tradespeople bc right now (especially in red states with low union presence) it, uh, sucks lol