Since AI’s rapid development, it has seeped into the education system and into classrooms. Its impact, however, is now impacting career paths that students choose to take.
It is predicted that over 90 million jobs will be displaced by the end of 2025. For students, this has raised the question if their field of study or career of choice is safe. “I think it gives and takes, it will take time to see if it endangers jobs as it creates more jobs in technology,” said senior Johann Duetemeyer. “But it also gets rid of jobs with simple tasks that have the potential to be automated.”
Students whose initial majors were going to be in jobs such as clerical work, tech and software development, customer support and marketing fear they are in the most danger. “People look at it in fear because they anticipate that AI will get more advanced soon and take their jobs, no matter the difficulty of the job they are doing,” said senior Thomas Bacon. This fear is influencing many students’ careers as they seek jobs that AI is least likely to replace.
The tasks that AI can possibly take over all share a common theme: repetitiveness and low cognitive requirements. Jobs such as data entry don’t require deep reasoning and follow a pattern with little variation that AI can follow.
Majors of difficult fields are also not left untouched by AI. While artificial intelligence might not take over the job, it will definitely impact how students should prepare for their majors. “The obvious tactical thing is to just get really good at using AI tools,” said OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman. “Like when I was graduating as a senior from high school, the obvious tactical thing was to get really good at coding. And this is the new version of that.
It is true that AI will remove and take over a myriad of jobs; these jobs can now be done at 10x the efficiency and productivity that a human can do. “AI will probably be able to take over monotonous jobs letting companies spend much less money for similar work as they don’t need to pay a living wage to many workers,” said Duetemeyer. Handing these jobs over to AI produces high ROI for companies as they can save money
For students planning their career path, consideration of the field’s future with respect to AI is essential. Students are entering their majors in light of AI that hasn’t been encountered before by previous generations. Instead of looking at AI as an obstacle, it can be seen as a tool to learn to utilize to complete automated tasks, encourage ideas and create.
