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

[Tffjyvkbh]

On back of the worming class boys thread. If AI takes over white collar jobs, what happens to all the m.c. communities. Education and aspiration became a feature post industrialisation once blue collar jobs disappeared and you needed education to get ahead in office jobs. What happens now? My kid is only 6 but already thinking about this.

If AI takes jobs, does education become pointless. How are parents guiding their kids? Looking at parts that lost industries, will parts of South east become like that once office jobs go?

If even Oxbridge and STEM is no longer enough to guarantee a comfortable life, then what for the young people?

The assisted dying bill is even more sinister in the context of this thread.

Yup. Hate to be doom and gloom but I see ai taking a lot of jobs not just white collar but blue collar too. We have robotic arms that can build cars in Chinese factories how long until they’re building houses and delivering food here.
It’s easy to say there will always be a few fire place builders but there can only be so many people doing the remaining jobs.

The elites aren’t going to want to pay for universal income/credit for 80% of the population

If people want robots to look after the elderly, or the severely disabled, or those with dementia, etc., then realistically, they'd be looking at having to have those people restrained and/or locked up, or the robots would have to be trained to use restraining forces. Confused or mentally disabled people aren't going to just sit back and let strange robots get personal with them!!

Re self service tills, I am one of many who think they DO make the customer experience better. They certainly reduce queueing for a start. None of this getting stuck behind 90 year old Mabel counting out her loose chain or faffing around trying to find her debit card. I greatly prefer shops with a self service option.

And yes, people DO care that robots can do things better than a human. If you look at the automated/robotic production/manufacturing processes, you get a consistent quality of end result. You don't suffer the "Friday afternoon" British Leyland faulty car anymore do you? A robot doesn't care what day it is, doesn't get stressed or lazy, doesn't go to work high on drink or drugs. I was the accountant in a factory in the 90s and we were just moving over onto CAD/CAM computerised manufacturing - it was an absolute revelation to watch the components churn off the production line, literally every last one of identical quality. It really wasn't just the money saving - the equipment cost hundreds of thousands of pounds and would take years to recover the costs - it was the standardisation, the reduced need to quality check every item, the reduced need, cost, time to re-work faulty man made items, and it massively increased efficiency as far more was produced in the factory space compared with having manual manufacturing equipment meaning we didn't have to buy a bigger factory!

If @Badbadbunny if robots can do a job better than humans, that's a bonus, not a requirement.

I’d rather a robot wipe my arse than a human

My eldest DD is at university training to be a veterinary surgeon - long course but AI can’t do that!

Robotic surgery will be more widely adopted in human medicine certainly but I don’t think veterinary surgeons will be completely immune from the onslaught of AI automation and robotics, sadly.

https://hub.jhu.edu/2025/07/09/robot-performs-first-realistic-surgery-without-human-help/

It’s a better bet than studying to be an accountant or a lawyer though.

And when all the comfortably-off professionals who happily hand over thousands for treatment for their furbabies lose their jobs?

Trades and apprenticeships are touted as the solution but the reality is there aren’t anywhere near enough apprenticeships or entry level roles. Not much you can do with those trade btechs without on the job training. Preferably
paid.

It costs companies to take on apprenticeships/train entry level candidates. Self employed contractors/small businesses are even less likely to be able to afford it. In a struggling economy they’re unlikely to be investing in trainees. AI isn’t necessarily the reason for that. It’s everyone trying to cut costs to the bone.

A lot of young people are going on to further education after 18 simply because there often isn’t a reliable alternative. Zero hours precarious work that doesn’t pay enough to live on or offer any scope for progression isn’t much of an alternative.

😂there is that

What a waste of human capital. People whose talents lie in art, languages, critical thinking, music etc encouraged to become plumbers to hope they can keep earning a crust. Nowt at all wrong with being a plumber if that's where your talents lie, but we should be building a society that lets everyone flourish within their skill set.

it will.

Ask me
'What jobs will be least affected by AI' ?

It may give you some ideas.

George Monbiot in the Guardian pretty much agrees with you (came up in relation to climate change, but it’s actually about the control billionaires have over the billions on the planet).
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/apr/23/catastrophic-climate-event-scientists-atlantic-system-collapse-billionaire-existential-crisis

I’d love a self sufficient (or partially so) homestead like the internetting Americans @Girasoli but this is overpopulated Britain where working classes cannot even afford the ex council houses or railway cottages that were built for us any more, or follow the dig for victory ideals, let alone follow the old smallholding dream.

Ha ha. Brilliant.

I was a software developer for years and now work in a senior leadership role in fintech, I’ve seen lots of ‘disruptive’ tech come and go over the years but generative AI is the real deal. It’s is quite simply amazing, we can’t keep up with how to adopt it. There will be no hiding from the impact of it unfortunately, I’m really worried for what the impact will be and I’m worried for my children’s future.

Jeez. This thread is very depressing. I rarely read an entire thread but I did this.

Just this week I had a LinkedIn connection request. It was basically some guy in Germany who has developed AI to do my Autocad role. We do data collection surveying too but already drones are doing the task of a two people in the field. Won't be long I suspect till drone manufacturers have the market cornered where their drones can just go from a depot to where requested with no man input on the ground and then convert the data into Autocad with no drafting roles. Where to turn? I also have a wayleave surveying background but reading up AI is also predicted to swallow that sector up with drones and admin automation.

As for my 13 year old son. He's recently said he wants follow his grandfather into the thatching trade. I like to think that role would stand more of a chance of job availability than my role but as others have said the whole economy relies on drip down money.

With AI and digital currency emerging together. It's going to be very interesting to see how it all pans out.

I grew up with one foot in the communist East. There academic jobs were less paid than manual work. Going to university, learning, education, was dangerous and a factory worker earned more than a teacher, university professor or doctor. Yet many pople still chose education as a way to define and keep their humanity. I think especially in a world of AI, learning and thinking becomes ever more important, and I try to help my children get the best possible education. But I don't expect that it will translate into earnings. Proper academic subjects (like classics, pure maths, astrophysics, literature, philopsphy, history, music, fine art etc) have never been about earning potential, even in the West. The paying jobs of the future will likely be service roles to a few very rich tech bros. It'll be like before the indudtrial revolution, when less than 2% of the population were landowners, and 98% of the population just existed to serve their lifestyle. We'll go back full circle to the dark ages, with the major tech bros owning everything and passing it on to their own children, and everybody else making a very poor living serving a few super billionaires.

My place has tonnes of roles going in AI related jobs. Not everyone’s cut out for blue collar - let’s not totally de-intellectualise our society with these worries. AI is a tool we’re figuring out how to use. Cost cutting is now, intelligent use of the tool is up next.

The job I do now didn’t exist when I was 6. You’ve got 12 years before your child needs to be ‘guided’.

What I hope is that AI can help us figure out solutions to the climate crisis. Anyone who hasn't yet read the George Monbiot column posted in this thread should do so.

DH works in AI. He is sort of optimistic about the future because he is a perennial optimist. But he doesn't see it working without UBI.

AI isn’t going to take all the jobs.

AI will replace tasks within roles and require human interaction to assure the AI outputs are valid and accurate. Regulated. Ethical and controlled.

new jobs will be created to support this, and junior positions will be sustained. Using the tech example, You can’t validate Java code written by an AI assistant if you didn’t learn the Java programming language in the first place.

granted the commodity lower skilled work is at higher, quicker risk - contact centre work for example, but not every job is be replaced by AI and new skills need to be learned

its the industrial revolution of our time - advise your kids to ensure the courses they are studying include modules of AI tooling and learning for the jobs they are thinking about.

Thanks for the link,
'The poor and middle pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the very rich pay lawyers – and the ultra-rich pay politicians. It’s not an original remark, but it bears repeating until everyone has heard it. The more money billionaires accumulate, the greater their control of the political system – which means they pay less tax, which means they accumulate more, which means their control intensifies.
They reshape the world to suit their demands. One of the symptoms of the pathology known as “billionaire brain” is an inability to see beyond their own short-term gain. They would sack the planet for a few more stones on the pointless mountain of wealth.'
V interesting & V alarming!

Middle of the century, it suggests. I'll have lived most of my life by then but as it says in the article, the value "they" place on future lives seems to be nothing. Keep everyone busy worrying about smaller things and planet will be destroyed.

On the up side - drastic climate change will likely "stop the boats" <joking>