Then there is the pipeline finding nobody is talking about loudly enough. Anthropic's researchers found a 14% decline in the job-finding rate for workers aged 22 to 25 in highly exposed occupations since ChatGPT launched. No comparable effect for workers over 25. Entry-level roles were never just jobs. They were the training ground where junior analysts became senior analysts, where junior lawyers learned how arguments hold together. If that layer disappears, nobody has answered the question of where the next generation of senior professionals comes from.That is an excellent question. When the training ground disappears and all the mentors have disappeared, then what happens?
Bottom line: Teach your children and grandchildren well.
Glad I am retiring next year.
As if Psychology and Sociology majors weren’t useless enough.
Vonnegut’s “Player Piano” may have gotten it completely upside down. Plumbers will live on the nice side of the river and programmers and lawyers in the slums on the other side.
"North to the Data Centers! Go North, the rush is on!"
The big problem is that a lot of the jobs that AI can’t replace depend on a customer base of those people who will be replaced by AI. AI doesn’t go to restaurants or bars and AI doesn’t need to have its roof repaired or lawn mowed.
Since I work in banking I can tell you the difference in the job market in banking compared to 2 years ago is night and day. Audit, Regulatory Reporting, Risk Management, Financial Analysis, etc have been especially hard hit. The banks haven’t laid off many people yet but they both stopped hiring and stopped hiring a lot of consultants for these kinds of roles - and they used to employ hordes of them for various projects at any given time. It really sucks....comparable to the Great Recession out there right now.
We have essentially replaced every IT job with Indians. They are just using AI as an excuse. The gaslighting is unbelievable.
It’s a short-term gain at the sacrifice of the long term.
The engineers get it, senior management just see bonuses.
We’re still hiring interns and new grads - if anything this brings opportunity because you can find talent others are overlooking.
I’m not sure where “medical diagnosis” would fall. It’s probably more of a legal issue at this point. However, much of our medical system revolves around “standard care”, which is often determined by insurance companies. It’s to the point of a checklist matrix and “order of execution”, where doctors are the qualified gatekeepers - with a scarcity of them.
Doctors are often wrong. I’d think AI would be very good at this in comparison - and could be kept up to date with the latest practices, knowledge, and technology much more easily.
Teachers and lawyers should also watch out.
It is a story about lawyers....
Every cloud has a silver lining.
If one has been wronged by a creep and needs a lawyer, one needs a real advocate, NOT a robo-lawyer!
I hope that the pipeline for training REAL advocates will still be there!
Thanks for posting!
That logic holds in some cases. But it breaks down badly when you examine fields where the human is operating in direct competition with other humans who are also using AI.
Take the Wall Street securities analyst. AI can now help him drill down into financial statements, earnings call transcripts, and industry data with a depth that wasn't possible before. Does that mean he can kick back? Hardly. His counterparts at competing firms are running the same tools. The competitive bar has been raised. He's now expected to produce insights that go beyond reading the financial statements, 10Ks, and the financial news. He's now got to understand the full operational dynamics of the companies and industries he covers–right down to the new granular data AI is helping him identify and process. AI didn't reduce the demand for good analysis; it reset the minimum standard for what "good" means.
The same logic applies in law. A defense attorney using AI to map every piece of evidence against the full universe of relevant case law isn't working less–he's working against a prosecutor doing exactly the same thing. Meanwhile, forensics teams are using AI to extract evidence from crime scenes that would have been invisible a decade ago. The competition intensifies on all sides simultaneously. Nobody gets to relax.
To add insult to injury-23 yr olds had to deal with Covid their senior year in high school and their freshman year of college. They got screwed in so many important ways of growing up.
The lawyer business will be interesting to watch because AI can’t be dragged into court for cross examination as to why certain papers and decisions were made. A human will still need to face judges and politicians. AI can help compile legal precedents and polish briefs but humans have to sign off on them. AI can’t read a room and make the split second decisions as to what to emphasize in legal points and what not. Paralegals will still be needed for the small stuff even if they utilize AI. AI can’t be indemnified, legally deposed, or swear in a court room so help them God. I suspect it will be judges at all levels, local, state, and Federal who will yell....”get me humans or so help me there will be no trials in this court room!”