The Insider Guide to Careers
Insider information, secrets and tips about getting hired and building careers. For employees and job candidates.
Manjunath Patel asks me, “How can non-IT people working in the IT industry survive in the AI era, especially if they are in their mid-30s and 40s?
My answer will first analyze what is happening with AI, especially with OpenAI, ChatGPT, etc.; compare it with similar predictions in the past; and then finally discuss the possible impact on careers.
Impact of AI: The world will change in front of our eyes, with or without AI. AI is not a new idea; it was a common topic in the 1940s, and by 1955, the first AI program was in place. However, for AI to introduce dramatic change, the world had to be sufficiently automated. The waves of automation and computerization kicked in the 1980s and 1990s, while the internet revolution began in the 1990s, leading to humans’ increasing reliance on technology. While automation has destroyed many jobs, it has also opened up innumerable jobs. Many of the jobs that disappeared were menial and cumbersome. Human life is richer after automation has happened. I remember a time in India when there were hundreds of record-keeping books in Indian banks and government offices. They were often lost or destroyed in fires. Since all this information has moved to servers and the cloud, there has been an extraordinary increase in the speed of execution and a lot more trust in the system. Science has also benefited by being able to access the remarkable volume of data generated across every sector and has been able to analyze the big data to come up with actionable recommendations that enhance the profitability of every company. If today’s companies have become behemoths, automation, and insights backed by data are the prime drivers.
Human life is like watching a horror movie. We are always waiting for the chance to get scared out of our minds. Both news media and movie directors recognize this innate need and keep churning out prodigious amounts of mind-numbing stories and scary movies. Yet, at the same time, our day-to-day life is as mundane as possible. Nothing happens; nothing changes; every day or year is the same as the previous year. So, we watch movies and news media to relieve ourselves from this monotony and get into a world that is crazy, scary, and frankly unreal.
Other fads: When I was younger, superconductivity was the rage. Later it was nanotechnology that would transform the world completely. Noting happened as predicted. Yes, some progress did happen but nothing remarkable. All the researchers and scientists who followed the latest fad and switched to the newest craze of the day ended up ruining their careers. Recently, self-driving cars have been the rage. Tesla, Waymo, Ford, and many others invested billions of dollars in this space, hoping they would crack the holy grail, but to no avail. In retrospect, all the extreme hype about self-driving cars turned out to be a damp squib. Some day it could emerge as a genuine phenomenon, but it is too early to call the shots. The true winners will be those who make incremental investments, don’t lose hope, and grab the advantage when the supporting environment emerges. Since we live in a daily barrage of news focused on the present, nobody cares if the news media gets it wrong. Hence, accuracy and thinking long-term have never been the focus of traditional media. The fiasco around cryptocurrency is a sad scenario where the media created a monster but has yet to do any soul-searching. The collapse of FTX and the corruption of Sam Bankman Fried were all examples of craven media succumbing to the lure of big money and encouraging a Ponzi scheme where the commoner lost big time.
The backroom players: We are unduly influenced by media channels when it comes to our futures. Media can hardly be considered neutral; the wealthy have always used it to promote their viewpoints, control their media narrative and protect their interests. Why are billionaires like JB giving away 100 million dollars to CNN contributors, GS giving away 131 million dollars to news media, and BG giving out 319 million dollars to news media (including more than 24 million dollars to NPR)? Since OpenAI is behind ChatGPT and the press is heavily hyping it up, one question worth asking is how much of the hype is accurate and how much is paid. Microsoft has invested around 13 billion dollars in OpenAI, and Microsoft’s overall valuation is up by hundreds of billions of dollars in the last couple of months- a fantastic ROI.
Future of AI: I am a big fan of AI, and Satya Nadella is opening up doors to using technology historically closed to the commoner. Examples include expensive tutoring (through companies like Chegg) that ChatGPT has replaced and fantastic images that mid-journey bots can create for free. The world is richer when every human can think of the big picture instead of wasting their time with trivial pursuits. But, unfortunately, Google stalled the development of AI in fear that it could disrupt their search business, where people have to search on innumerable links (including many sponsored links) to get an answer to a question. This obstructionist and protectionist attitude is indeed a sorry state of affairs. Instead, we should all cheer on Microsoft trying to disrupt Google’s monopoly of a broken search business model. The world will be better with more competition.
Let us be clear; nobody knows the future. In addition, we have seen many sensational predictions of the future, which all amounted to nothing. Despite that, our civilization has become quick on the trigger and ready to ban any new technology on short notice. Remember that nobody can see the future, neither you nor Tim Cook, Satya Nadella, Elon Musk, or Sundar Pichai. None of this group has a Ph.D. degree. One has no degree in either engineering or technology, and the other three ditched their engineering backgrounds to get an MBA. All of them care only about where the dollars will come from. None of these big tech companies will allow any ban on AI, which will impact their future revenue streams. This new business could easily unlock trillions of dollars.
What it means for you:
1) Short-term (5-20 years): There will be an extraordinary focus on AI and CS skills. Automation will replace many traditional and low-skilled jobs. To make that happen, someone has to train these models. This entire process can take decades. Some roles will be automated faster, and some slower. So having the right mathematical and CS skills will always help. A lot of software engineers (even those in FANG companies) can code but have a poor understanding of the Mathematical concepts involved. These people have learned coding after memorizing books by rote, copying from websites, etc.
I fear for the futures of those who act like machines without understanding the deep subtleties of software engineering. These are precisely the jobs that AI can take over completely. Low-end software coding jobs involving mindless copy-paste from websites and brain-numbing software testing work are easy targets for AI to take over. If you are a software engineer, go back to the fundamentals of mathematics, DSA, systems design, and so on. Read from scratch, go back to high school and college level Math, reskill yourself in your weak areas through online MOOC classes, and so on. If you start now, you will be safe when the AI revolution begins to hit software engineering jobs in 2-3 years. Right now, no company will embrace AI completely when it comes to workplace coding; there are too many issues around how meaningful or effective the code is. So there is breathing time for the willing to retrain themselves.
If you are graduating from high school, choose CS as your undergrad degree. Of course, you can always switch to other areas later, but having a core foundation in CS is essential. The other option for you is to join a Mechanical, Civil, or core engineering degree but pick up CS skills side by side. In that way, you can implement automation in your sectors and workplaces. Very few core students have a solid background in CS, so that can be your unique differentiator.
2) Long-term(20-50 years): In the long term, AI will replace tech jobs starting from the ground up, like Software Engineer to Sr Software Engineer to Software Manager, and so on. Ultimately computers will need to mimic human brains completely to replace a human. Humans also learn from the culture around them. So machines should also learn how large numbers of humans work in the form of societies. All this will take a very long time. There are even questions about whether all this is deterministic or some of it also driven by pure chance.
Creativity, leadership, and other skills will take a very long time to model. Hence jobs involving these skills will be around for the students entering the workforce today. Moreover, workplaces require not just technical skills but also business, people, and communication skills. So continue to invest in these skills.
Two things are certain: Our industry will always need leadership skills, and humans are entering a phase of lifelong learning. Gone are the days when you finish undergrad at age 22, finish your Masters by age 24, and retire at age 65. For today’s students, you may have to go in and out of school multiple times in your career. You need not do fancy expensive degrees but also acquire skills through short, focused training programs. You may have to moonlight to gain skills or volunteer to work with other teams in your company after finishing your work. Expectations will be higher, and there will be no shortcuts. People will have to run faster and faster to be in the same place.
Careerbolt: I am really passionate about the topic of upskilling, as is evident from my long post. I am spending a lot of time on an upskilling and recruitment community for students and working professionals called Careerbolt. The idea is to democratize recruiting by periodic measurement of skills, industry internships, involving industry professionals to create free learning paths to show you their path to success, get mentor feedback, get expert professor guidance, and so on. Careerbolt will solve the complex issues of lifelong learning and getting your dream job by leveraging the power of AI. We have been working on tweaking the solution for over a year with industry and academia. Our solution will be live soon. Connect with me to learn more.
I have given a long answer to a short question. The simple answer to Manju’s question is not to worry, upskill and get into more senior roles.
For more, follow also my Substack and Careerbolt channels.
