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.”
FYI that employment drop has way more to do with a Trump tax law that was delayed to take effect that year than AI. I’ve been hit hard there myself, spending probably 7 total months unemployed since that time. Based on recruiter spam, I think it’s actually ticking up a bit these days.
But you’re right that the hype is distorting things by making C-suite execs believe dumb things.