The 4 Jobs of the Future

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In a significant turn of events, one of the key incumbents in the industry, Sam Altman, openly discussed the impact of AI on jobs.

Often considered a taboo in Silicon Valley to prevent politicians from freaking out, this turnaround implies that leaders are so convinced of AI's transformational nature that they don’t bother pretending anymore because this disruption is strong and coming soon.

However, they do claim that humans will remain, just not in their current form, aka new jobs will be born. But no one is writing down what these jobs will be.

Today, we are doing just that, helping those who want to immerse themselves in the industry or help leaders understand what roles their organization might need shortly.

Covering four jobs, we’ll first discuss ‘AI’s first phase of disruption’ and its societal and macroeconomic impact. Then, for each job, we’ll explain their raison d’être and, at the end of the article, I’ll list a set of primarily-free resources to start your journey today.

When Humans Became Numbers on a Spreadsheet

AI is coming for our jobs. It will probably not wholly substitute humans—except in concrete jobs—but make them so efficient that many current job incumbents will no longer be needed.

And the first people in line to fall are white-collar workers.

Productivity Enhancement

During the first wave of AI job disruption, which we focus on today, AI is synonymous with productivity.

Some enthusiasts like Sam also talk about how AI will go beyond humans, discovering ‘all of physics,’ but there’s little to no evidence AI is even remotely close to that vision. Therefore, we are focusing on the things that AI is clearly going to be capable of doing—if not already.

But most people frame ‘the AI problem’ wrongly. When asked about AI taking our jobs, we all automatically frame this reality as one where ALL humans in a job are replaced.

However, that will largely not be the case, especially when an enterprise’s hierarchy depends on accountability, aka someone taking the blame if things go south.

Who are we going to blame, a machine? Humans will remain. But when people hear that, they go to the opposite extreme, ‘Oh, AI isn’t replacing all of us. Hence, we are safe.’

No you’re not.

You will be safe only if you are better than your peers. In other words, while AI isn’t taking all of us to the unemployed street, it will certainly take many of us.

Therefore, the best way to be better than the rest in the age of AI is to embrace AI. An AI won’t substitute you, but you will be substituted by a human who knows how to use AI.

AI is not the enemy; it’s the weapon.

Long story short, the goal here isn’t to be better than AI, but to be better than your peers when AI reduces the staff count requirements by 70%.

Another common misconception is that AI will have a ‘microeconomic’ driver. That is, enterprises will want…

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