What happens to kids if AI takes entry level jobs? What you advising them?

@WheretheFishesareFrightening

Ai isn't in the room when you meet the tax authorities. Your settlement details aren't online. It doesn't know you agreed that MAP settlement in 2023. It doesn't know that other companies in your sector are under audit for their employment tax issues.

Your lawyer or big 4 advisor does.

Its all the information, relationships, advice, connections, that are not online, that AI has not learned from. That legislation that is still being consulted on with an industry lobbying group who operate strictly Chatham house rules on their meetings.

AI can actually give really quite misleading information because of how much it is missing in terms of information not in the public domain.

AI learns from people. If the input disappears it quickly gets outdated and inaccurate.

I would say they need to be out working in low paid jobs -waiting tables, mcDs, people facing skills which can go on their CVs so they’re are used to working not sitting at home though I know these aren’t so easy to find. volunteering if nothing else, Tradesmen round here can’t get young men to turn up regularly and on time. Women could work at this too but don’t usually do trades.

I'd just think about it for a few moments. AI is your helper, don't make it more than that.

Re recruitment, it's a bit dumb if there's no human input but AI can be a helpful sorting tool

Worked for me too graduating in 2007!

A.I is going to change the world as we know it.

Imagine growing up in communism and suddenly the regime collapses. Thats the level of change coming.

Governments have no idea how to manage. Business and computing are moving faster than society can adopt.

Everything we know, school, work, the economy, it's all about to come crashing down.

It was shit hot advice for me who graduated a red brick in 2011 with a generic non sector specific degree… albeit my parents had no idea and I figured out that was the best route by myself.

Most of the AI companies aren't making profits yet. The costs of the energy required to deliver through AI exceed the value its creating/the demand for it.

The demand for it will only come when it delivers what humans do at reduced cost but the energy consumption is huge at the moment.

Can you chat me through why you think tax advice is AI proof?

(I’m a Big4 tax adviser)

It's not an easy answer, but what you have to do is prepare your kids to be adaptable, and keep the conversation going.

My parents led me blithely down the "you're a straight A student, go to an RG and work it out later" route. I graduated shortly after the financial crash in 08.

It turned out showing up with a 2:1 from a red brick complacently wasn't shit hot advice. You need to talk to them about what they want, what they're good at, and find work within that.

We need to be really careful. AI is great at some things. It is not however (yet) human. At the point at which is becomes human, we are all fucked.

AI recruitment is a classic case. So many companies deploying AI recruitment. The problem is, "it" collects candidates like itself. Robotic, automated, fixed in time. Recruiters are finding although it saves time and money, and personnel, the shortlists it produces are flawed and not presenting the best possible candidates. People are still needed, for now.

DD is doing a Masters of mathematics in mathematical physics in an RG University. She couldn't get to where she wants to be without going to university. She has a lot of options so hopefully she'll be ok.
It does amuse me when PP say get a trade, or get an apprenticeship like they're applying for a college course. It's not easy to get a good one. Places are very sought after. DS1 beat 400 other applicants for his.
DS2 did a two wèek unpaid (they later paid him) internship with 15 other students from his engineering course. He was the only one taken on.

AI-based devices with arms and legs - not quite robots but a rudimentary version of it.

AI doesn't have arms and legs, and can't go up a ladder though..... Please explain.

its a numbers game - not everyone can retrain as an AI cyber specialist - there just wont be enough jobs. If AIU is replacing say 50% of the tasks needed and 1 person can oversee AI doing the work of 5 people then yes, 1 new job has been created but 4 jobs have been lost.
As someone said - people wont be able to afford to have their hair cut, new bathrooms or fancy coffees, so the 'AI proof jobs' will also be indirectly affected. At the moment trades can charge a lot as demand outstrips supply - trades can be choosey about what jobs they take and charge big call out fees etc. If suddenly the amount of plumbers increases by 100% then prices will need to drop to compete for business.

Get a trade isn’t a golden ticket. If everyone is a plumber or hairdresser there will be no one to pay them

Agreed. So either UBI or (more likely) new roles will gradually emerge that we perceive need to be done by humans. Keynes predicted that automation would lead to a 15 hour working week- instead we all work longer than ever at increasingly pointless things. Capitalism finds a way.

How many eg PR officers were there before the industrial revolution? None. The function of this sort of slightly pointless job (what David Graeber calls a bullshit job) is to keep people busy and provide a way of keeping money flowing through the economy, rather than to provide value to society in itself (as a nurse or a lumberjack does). (No offence to any PR officers- the argument applies to many jobs including parts of my own.)

I don't really see why the effect of AI would be terribly different. Once you discard the idea that the purpose of a job is to offer value to society through its output and accept that its primary purpose is to maintain the consumer economy, what counts as a job can expand pretty radically.

What if you child is not interested nor capable of a trade! My DD is an academic. Not at all practical minded or able. Lets just right off a whole cohort of kids.

There was no AI when I finished university 20 years ago, now I work building AI systems and train AI to do stuff. I didn't study it at university nor did my parents warn me about it, I just picked it up out of interest, did online lessons and learnt over time. Regardless of what happens in the future, the university will give you the basics but the rest is on you to adapt and learn new things. AI isn't going to destroy all careers obviously, new things will emerge using AI as a tool.

When middle class people have crap jobs they won’t be able to afford highlights or new bathrooms either …….

Honestly the reason why there has been a struggle for "growth" in the last 20 years is what has really driven "growth" in the last 200 years, was rapid population growth.

More people buying stuff. More customers, more consumers, a bigger market to sell to.

It's slowed down in the west, which means companies constantly cut costs to preserve profits, but what they struggle for is revenue growth, instead of everyone growing because a market is growing, you have to out compete to gain market share so there are as many losers as winners.

There has to be a fundamental rethink of how we measure economic success that isn't about "growth" in a more population stable world.

Just this morning I listened to a call for more trainee plasterers, basic and fancy, from an industry group.
There are loads of jobs AI won't impact.

As one of those people using Claude everyday - it’s not all it’s cracked up to be 😁 Countless billions have been invested in these companies and the only way AI can be profitable is if it replaces a huge chunk of the workforce - and as many people say, if no one has a job who is buying the products and services created by AI?

I hope these billionaires don’t retreat to their private islands whilst the rest of the world burns in their relentless obsession with being ‘best’. I do wish governments would pull their finger out and do something to at least reassure the population that we’re not going to be left in some post apocalyptic hell hole in 5 years time. My dc are good at the things AI has come for but I’d rather they do the things they enjoy now rather than try and second guess everything and then they still end up fighting over the last turnip in Europe with everyone else.

So jobs that are fairly AI proof:

healthcare (nurse, doctor, physio, radiologist etc)
working with children: nanny, childminder, nursery assistant, teacher, teaching assistant, tutor
working with elderly people: physio, care worker, care assistant in old peoples home, activities co-ordinator, etc, computer repair and support for elderly people,
service jobs: cleaner, cook, waiters, gardeners, handyman business
trades of all kinds
accountancy and tax advice (the big 4 don’t make most of their money from audit anymore)
politics

There are plenty of researchers and frontline AI developers that have very different views from this. AI is a tool, we not ever forget that.

Jobs/roles etc may change and redefine but we call the shots unless we are completely stupid.