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

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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?

Ok so say the worse happens the true apocalyptic scenario, no jobs, everyone living on one house, people just running down the family money, no one having relationships or children because no one can afford it

schools closing
people doing their own dentistry
stray dogs breeding everywhere
dirty streets
empty shops

say this happens?

isn’t it best to not worry about it before it does? Keep a bit of optimism?

right now companies using AI are doing so on very reduced rates, the people who have invested in AI have invested hundreds of millions of dollars and will at some point want a return on their investment

H was explaining this with simple figures to make it easier to understand
so right now AI costs £50 a day to run
the true cost is £1000 a day
at some point the AI providers will have to make this flip but when?

there was a man who wanted a marketing person for his small growing business
he was persuaded to spend on AI instead to do it for him
so he thought I will give it a go - on reduced rates
it took him hours going over everything AI did, it wasn’t quite right,
then he saw an job listing for the AI company for a human marketing manager
and he thought “hang on if it’s so good why is the company selling it to me not using it”
so he sacked it off and hired a human as his original plan

it’s an industry built on sand right now

it will be fine

there will be jobs

You’d be hard pressed to find an organisation that isn’t storing their confidential data digitally. The risk of hacking already exists, implementing AI doesn’t materially increase that risk.

Sadly I think the answer is - if AI takes the current entry level jobs, new recruits will be only hired higher up the business. This will be a) fewer white collar jobs and b) instead of on the job training, you’ll be expected to have completed more training to jump straight in higher up.

If B comes to pass, it’s not going to be good enough to just get a degree. You may find more vocational masters level courses. This will entrench further privilege- only the kids of parents who can cover 6 years of post 18 training will get the opportunities.

And that’s what they said then too This really isn’t any different.

No it’s much worse than that!

and who do you prosecute?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ng-interactive/2026/mar/12/lab-test-mounting-concern-over-rogue-ai-agents-artificial-intelligence

We are all trying to learn from big hacks. The British Library one may not have had a lot of impact on finance and business but it's taught us a lot about vulnerabilities that inform

How do we control the narrative though?

I am part of that in the tax advisory world, but I have to meet my client demands. And we are losing clients to AI. If they’re paying AI enabled firms or even publicly available AI, then I don’t have the income to be able to hire people, I have to consider redundancies in the team.

So I need to keep up with the AI development and create efficiencies with AI to meet client demand.

I can’t influence client demand or other firms setting up with more AI and fewer staff.

We could as a society, but we are a capitalist society, if there’s an opportunity to make money or save money by using AI and not humans, I doubt that everyone is going to make the decision for the greater good and opt not to develop or use it that way.

Good point, we are at the moment at a point where some are in thrall and some are not.

Education is never pointless. Just saying.

Since anything which has been digitised can potentially be hacked perhaps people will increasingly value privacy and not want their personal info to be digitised in any way.

Exactly. This is why we are encouraging our children to take a different path to us. Unfortunately the school system is designed to educate the pupils towards this end and is too slow to respond to a changing world. Home Education and instilling a lifelong love of learning is a great way of mitigating this. Future generations are going to need to be autodidacts and be flexible in order to thrive, IMO.

The other day I noticed some blatantly AI-generated greetings cards in the shops. I feel really sorry for graphic designers who spent years developing their careers. Companies aren't going to pay them to spend hours doing something that AI can do for free within minutes.

There's not a chance in hell that graphic design will be the only career affected, it's just the most visible one. AI is going to steal a lot of jobs. Does anyone remember Cleverbot from around 2013? Look how simplistic that was compared to ChatGPT and Claude. Imagine what chatbots will be able to do in 2036. It's actually somewhat scary.

Schools need to change their way of teaching so that kids learn how to apply their knowledge and not just learn off poems (and vast swathes of other content).
Mine have just finished school and I value the education they've had - but it is time for a shake up now. I am hopeful they can get jobs and move alongside AI but there are big changes coming.
Those who think the industrial revolution, etc was just fine don't really know how many individuals lost livelihoods for years before things corrected. Progress is essential but we need to be moving towards preserving the planet before it's too late.

I think for the very STEM focussed it’s still worth doing, fewer will be needed probably.

For others in the middle another path is probably better. I also question the whole keep up the birth rate thing given fewer workers will be needed, look at getting taxes other than relying heavily on income tax.

Where I work there's an ever growing amount of governance about AI even closed systems, as we know full well that we are sharing valuable content. Eg we do not give our advisors permission to put all our data into their AI systems, but we object less to them verbally giving no names insights to peers eg on audit outcomes.

There will never be a time when tax authorities even put everything in writing.

Ever dealt with tax authorities in China, India etc? Its all undocumented meetings and they don't allow it any other way.

My GP surgery now has a virtual receptionist you “talk” to when you ring up. It’s actually quite responsive and better than I thought it would be. Takes your name, address, dob, asks you while you’re ringing, appears to “understand “ your response and responds appropriately asking for more details. Said my call would be triaged and a while later I had a text telling me my appointment time.

Now the surgery have said this frees the receptionist to get on with other stuff. I imagine once they’re happy with the system while there may be one human left in the background, there won’t be multiple receptionists working at the same time like now. So yes, employment opportunities will go down.

It’s not just young people but even people in established careers as redundancies everywhere and people can’t get another job

I understand how you feel. We don't yet know how this will bottom out, but it's not an 'if' it's a 'when'. AI is already decimating jobs in my sector and it's happened very suddenly - not a slow change. I do worry about kids going to Uni to study for jobs that almost certainly will no longer exist (or hardly exist) in a few years time. I'm in the 'get a trade' gang, but I do agree that the money has to be coming from somewhere to pay all these tradespeople.

This!

All good skills to have . If they want a more academic one I wound recommend radiographer the nhs needs more of them.

i think it’s a valid concern. Certainly there will be less white collar jobs

we have a joiner doing work in our house, he’s talented and massively in demand. I’ve told my boys the trades might well be the way forward.

They'll have to just get on with it and learn. Humans are built to learn and perfect practical skills. It's either that or a very menial job. I don't think there's going to be very many choices left for the middle classes. I think without mental stimulation, people will quietly go mad, so might as well train for a somewhat stimulating, problem solving job with a measurable outcome rather than serving coffee or whatever to increasingly hostile human beings who smear shit all over the walls of the public toilets.

With no middle class positions left will we reduce to lords and serfs?

This. We are something like 20 x more productive than 100 years ago due to being able to live and work amongst technology, yet we are not working 20 x less. Work won’t dry up - productivity and how much employers and the government expect of each person will shoot up instead. In a way it’s sad

Some academic careers will still be needed. But many trades were looked down on for a while and some dc who could have done that instead could be happier doing so. Not everyone has to switch though.