Ask HN: What career would you switch into if AI ate your profession?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34547255

by rohanshah • 3 years ago

27 91 3 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

If by some miracle/disaster AI automated away a non-trivial percent of your profession over the next decade or so, what career would you switch into to take you through retirement?

gvb• 3 years ago

I would work as a counselor for neurotic AIs.

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/685736-modern-elevators-are...

WithinReason• 3 years ago

I was thinking of Susan Calvin when you said that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Calvin

Snitch-Thursday• 3 years ago

I would swap over to basic locksmithing. And / or swap to starving artist mode writing my manual AI-free fantasy novels.

postalrat• 3 years ago

AI Whisperer

burkaman• 3 years ago

Electrician or solar panel installation or something like that.

francisofascii• 3 years ago

I like it. Just can’t be afraid of heights.

Loughla• 3 years ago

I've been looking at switching to solar installation. The problem is whether or not that is a good move, long-term, is super regional (in the US, and I guess I'm assuming you're from the US). For the states that have incentives to pair with the federal incentives, business is booming. But for everywhere else, the return on your investment just isn't there, yet.

Also, installers seem to make little money, whereas sales staff make shitloads. So there's probably something to that if you really thought about it.

Source; We're having solar installed. Without federal and state incentives/tax breaks, the break-even point on the max system our rural cooperative will let us put up is around 30 years, with incentives, it's around 5.

tyleo• 3 years ago

I’d become a Yoga Instructor. I was certified as of a few years ago so I’d takes some classes again to renew my cert.

Lotsa folks attend yoga classes for the personal connection. Not just the spirituality or fitness. That personal connection can’t be replicated by AI so I think it’s a good choice if AI starts coming for my programming job.

etrautmann2• 3 years ago

This is a good point, and something yoga classes should do a better job of. It seems like they don’t generally emphasize community when that’s what many are looking for.

augstein• 3 years ago

Ranger or hunter.

fiat_fandango• 3 years ago

Locksmith or electrician. If I had the cash, I'd just start a tree + algae + bsf farm.

etrautmann2• 3 years ago

BSF?

harryvederci• 3 years ago

Black Soldier Fly, apparently.

husarcik• 3 years ago

If AI took over radiology, I'd probably find my way into palliative care and education.

ldoughty2• 3 years ago

Top picks:

Game development -- AI will eventually be guidable to write code, but it likely won't have "imagination" in the next decade (and I am not worried about my finances after that)

Beer making -- Similarly, AI likely won't understand taste for quite some time

Woodworking -- When everything is mass produced by automation, I suspect people will want unique, custom, hand-made things more.

Edit: Fix format, clarify statement on next decade :-)

curioussavage• 3 years ago

Ha! So three very popular hobbies for programmers? I guess we’ll all all join you in those endeavors

jobs_throwaway3• 3 years ago

Programmers tend to have a lot of free time. You'd be hard-pressed to find a hobby that isn't popular among programmers

cartoonfoxes• 3 years ago

If its furniture you're thinking of - people want custom hand-made things now, they just can't afford them. That trend isn't going to change with increased automation.

adamsmith1432• 3 years ago

Beer making -- Similarly, AI likely won't understand taste for quite some time

Might be wishful thinking, presumably you can give it taste reviews from people along with chemical makeup and can predict chemical mixtures that will rank highly on taste.

bradly2• 3 years ago

Woodworking -- When everything is mass produced by automation, I suspect people will want unique, custom, hand-made things more.

Funnily enough I’ve used AI in my woodworking to generate novel coffee table designs, write product descriptions for Etsy listings, and generate a logo.

rybosworld• 3 years ago

How did you generate a logo with AI?

speedgoose• 3 years ago

but it likely won't have "imagination" in the next decade

I find GPT models to perform very well on this task. ChatGPT is the best right now but even small models like GPT J 6B are good.

ldoughty2• 3 years ago

They work on text, but could ML/AI design SimCity 2000 in a way that is fun and enjoyable? or a game like Starcraft? (In the next 10-15 years, which is the scope of this Ask HN relative to me)

It might be able to make realistic text, even storylines, but I don't think ML/AI will be able to make GOOD games without significant guidance, especially things that 'break the mold' (Portal, Black & White, the first "Sim" game, the first RTS game)

animuchan2• 3 years ago

Game development is an interesting one. Looking at the bulk of recent triple-A titles, most of those feel so unimaginative and secondary that I can only assume AI already took over that field. :)

the_only_law3• 3 years ago

Funny enough though, the unimaginative, secondary nature that you describe has revived an old desire to make my own games, but I’m no artist.

talaba• 3 years ago

beer making

No need for AI. T-test (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student%27s_t-test) was invented more than a century ago to improve beer quality.

de_nied• 3 years ago

All your top picks have "innovation as a requirement for success" in common. AI is meant to reproduce outcomes, which means that innovation isn't something an AI can do. Or can it?

more_corn• 3 years ago

Define innovation. AI can basically follow any prompt for writing or visual imagery.

If you can have the idea it can generate the output. You can probably prompt it to have ideas too.

skyyler• 3 years ago

People keep telling me that I should be doing food professionally, so I'd probably make delicious food and sell it at a reasonable price.

ChintanGhate• 3 years ago

Same! would open a small patisserie.

courgette7• 3 years ago

Please do, the US has such a lack of patisseries and boulangeries ( sorry to assume your position )

Swizec3• 3 years ago

The career I’m already moving towards – technical leadership. Swap programmers with AI and the really fun part of designing and building software systems remains the same.

Honestly the work is very similar. Much of what I do these days is conveying ideas to fuzzy intelligences, getting their feedback and suggestions, iterating, and making sure the final product is coherent, does what it says, and fits the longer term vision.

Turns out you can get a lot more done by keeping 5 people on track than you can by banging code on a keyboard.

courgette7• 3 years ago

Fair. But I would be weary of the swap also swapping the compensation down.

Not that it really matter on the long run in the context of that question

Swizec3• 3 years ago

I found this article insightful: https://milkyeggs.com/?p=303

When the internet empowered more people to do the lawyers’ grunt work, compensation became bimodal. There is more value in being on the high end, but less on doing the grunt work.

I think that’s gonna happen with other professions. Including ours (engineering). If you’re doing grunt work – be afraid. If you’re doing high level work – rejoice, it’s about to get easier.

You see this same effect in design for example. An art/design director’s job is about to get easier. The designer making the 5000th billboard for $Brand based on a style guide … could be tough.

lovehashbrowns• 3 years ago

Leatherworking seems pretty fun tbh

qikInNdOutReply• 3 years ago

Would turn to personality optimization. After that i would go to heaven. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48484.Blindsight

thomasahle• 3 years ago

Are we assuming there'll still be a big group of people with non-eaten professions and money to buy stuff? Or that all the world's wealth is concentrated with 3 guys, so I have to find a career that serves them?

adversaryIdiot• 3 years ago

local bum. and I'll enjoy it!

antihero2• 3 years ago

Yeah I’d recede back into being a crust punk

shanxS• 3 years ago

Level up. Use AI to build more sophisticated services/tools. It's not like we have solved world hunger or climate challenges.

We have a fancy new tool. Let's play!

Run_DOS_Run• 3 years ago

If every job of IT-Security is obsolete (including exploit dev, reverse engineering, pentesting) I would prefer a job in drug discovery preferably as a bioinformatician. I can't believe AI is able to find cures against every kind of cancer (even if I wish).

adamsmith1432• 3 years ago

I would prefer a job in drug discovery preferably as a bioinformatician

AlphaFold already has you beat.

jobs_throwaway3• 3 years ago

I'll bet you $20 to a charity of your choice that in 10 years human bioinformaticians are still employed in drug discovery

__derek__• 3 years ago

IMO, AI-driven development will increase the need for security work:

    increased throughput * (training on insecure code - competent human review)

The OWASP Top Ten are going to come back in a big way.

ilc• 3 years ago

I'd go into AI. If you can't beat 'em join 'em.

chaosite• 3 years ago

AI would be one of the first niches consumed if AI ate programming.

jonfw2• 3 years ago

I'd probably get into mechanic work

courgette7• 3 years ago

Gasoline engine or Electric Vehicule?

jonfw2• 3 years ago

I like moving parts, so I'd opt gasoline, but I'd probably end up doing heavy equipment or something like that that's not so commoditized

Avshalom2• 3 years ago

Corpse I guess... If I was emotionally capable of changing jobs I would have by now.

phkahler• 3 years ago

Bar tender, therapist, or teacher.

dopeboy• 3 years ago

I’d become a teacher.

antihero2• 3 years ago

Probably deal drugs I guess

bravetraveler• 3 years ago

Controlling the AI to do my former job, I guess

I have to assume we won't be letting them fly blind

ben_w• 3 years ago

Landlord, author, and a youtube channel (a hybrid of Colin Furze's mad tech and Primitive Technology's silently building and showing is something I'd want to watch and have not yet found).

giraffe_lady2• 3 years ago

It's kind of amazing that we've created a world where it's plausible a lot of our jobs could become automated and this is a bad thing. We really fucked up lol.

Anyway I don't have any other economically valuable skills and I'm not willing to go back to cooking. I'd try to join a monastery if any would have me. If not I'll just be homeless again until the people who still have jobs finally work up the courage to execute those without.

courgette7• 3 years ago

Yeah, growing up, my understanding of “the plan” that we would end up writing poetry and dance in farandoles in orchards while the machines slaves away our work.

That plan got cancelled I think.

giraffe_lady2• 3 years ago

Instead we made machines to write poetry so we can have more time for work.

Melting_Harps• 3 years ago

It's kind of amazing that we've created a world where it's plausible a lot of our jobs could become automated and this is a bad thing. We really fucked up lol.

Agreed, we were promised self-driving cars and Tesla bots to do our house hores, instead what is really waiting is the dire prospect of being un or underemplyed as so many have been in other developed economies after sustained financial crisis: most of the World is mirroring what Japan has become after the bubble economy.

Anyway I don't have any other economically valuable skills and I'm not willing to go back to cooking. I'd try to join a monastery if any would have me. If not I'll just be homeless again until the people who still have jobs finally work up the courage to execute those without.

Don't go back to cooking if you value your sanity and respect(ed) your craft, COVID destroyed any level of competence and soaring food costs coupled with untrained and unmotivated staff have choked the life of many of my chef friends: I went on a few stages to see for myself when I was home for the holidays in the US as the tech layoffs were in starting gather steam ahead of Xmas and new years in '22, and while I got work on the line on the spot I refused them for the same reasons: everything is being McDonal'ized in order to compete for market share where corps run things due to thier access to larger budgets, loans and outside investment that allow them to amoratize costs (and even run at a loss with franchise models) so cuisine is not even a post-thought.

This has made me want to see this entire Industry collapse.

Personally, I'm a Machine Learning student in university so I guess I'll be training the algos to take your jobs if this actually happens?

animuchan2• 3 years ago

Security researcher, probably. Once AI takes over any significant part of the software development field, I anticipate a lot of demand for audit, partly because the AI can't be held accountable for security breaches in any meaningful way.

the_only_law3• 3 years ago

God if I had the patience I’d love to do security research.

the_only_law3• 3 years ago

Ideally or realistically?

Havoc• 3 years ago

Collect UBI presumably. If my role gets AI'd then presumably so has the vast majority of humanity.

In a field that is supposedly easy to automate (accounting) but senior enough that I'm essentially just doing crisis management on novel situations and project management.

cristianpascu• 3 years ago

Making music! :) That's something I love so much, I could be drowning in a see of AI generated music and still love music and do my own.

jobs_throwaway3• 3 years ago

Cooking, writing novels, or running a small shop

karaterobot• 3 years ago

Hate to be a downer, but the likely outcome is that a lot of us would get angry, depressed, and addicted. This future is a hypothetical for our industry, but it's happened before with other industries, so we have some precedent to look to. The "don't worry, you'll learn new skills and switch careers" promise has been tried, too. Results have been mixed at best.

Unklejoe• 3 years ago

I’d become a burner technician for boilers. You have to be technically minded so there are some barriers to entry, and it’s basically critical infrastructure so there’s some security. They also get paid well.

commondream• 3 years ago

Farming

scyzoryk_xyz• 3 years ago

Haha since my profession has lately been nothing but studying human surgeons in training - with tedious user experience sessions - I don’t think what I’m doing is going away anytime soon. If anything AI has been helpful in transcribing, sorting and understanding all the video material. But I try to stick to human problems, and those are a plenty in medicine.

Watching them work though, I think I would want to start doing proper medicine. I’m extremely jealous of medical professions - I wish I could meaningfully contribute.

hapanin• 3 years ago

I work in AI research, so if AI eats my profession I guess I'm joining the resistance in the First AI War. Or maybe we'll have a post scarcity AI utopia? TBD.

courtesycumber• 3 years ago

I would probably volunteer more in my state's museum and attempt to break into academic paleontology. I've already donated some of my specimens and have the knowledge / skills to contribute to research. I expect the risk of automation in archaeology / paleontology is low.

explNosIGGERve• 3 years ago

soldier/terrorist/assassin

bm3719• 3 years ago

Prison guard. With AI good enough to put programmers out of work, there's not much that is safe from its reach. So, until prison reform happens such that human guards are no longer needed, the market for prison guards will be healthy enough to make it until I decide to retire (or join the Butlerian Jihad myself).

jjk166• 3 years ago

I'm in automation so when I'm out of a job, everyone is. That said, automation doesn't really eat professions - automation does tasks. Very few professions are composed of a wide variety of tasks. For example while we might at first glance think of truck driving as merely guiding a vehicle, in reality a truck driver does much more like loading and unloading cargo, handling paperwork at pickup and destination, checking for issues that would require maintenance, sitting with the vehicle so neither it nor the cargo are tampered with, etc. Automating a particular task may remove a bottleneck that allows individuals in the profession to be more productive, and thus the same amount of total work could be done in theory by a smaller labor force, but in nearly all cases it makes more sense to have the same size labor force do more work: it always takes a smaller percentage increase in sales to make as much money as a cost reduction could save, and costs can only be cut so far while there is no hard limit on growth.

Much more likely than automation taking over a profession is that automation changes the nature of a profession. For example with truck driving while there's much more to it than driving the truck, the ability to actually drive the truck has always been critical and thus things like the possession of a valid CDL limit the number of people who can enter the profession and keep wages pretty high. You automate trucks and you're still going to need lots of people to do logistics, but those people may not need a CDL and thus wages might be more similar to delivery van drivers. Other professions might see a less crisp change, for example I would expect as AI becomes better at technical things like diagnostics, bedside manner will become ever more important a metric for medical professionals and doctors who don't like that aspect of the profession will become steadily more dissatisfied.

Thus the best way to automation-proof your job isn't to do professions that are difficult to automate, but rather where automation would compliment your skills and let you do more of the parts you find fulfilling. For example I foresee AI revolutionizing many creative professions in the not too distant future like art and music by offering tools that eliminate much of the technical skill necessary to turn an idea into reality, allowing for artists to focus more on coming up with cool ideas. Similarly things like product development and marketing are going to be much more fun and be much more accessible, though they may not pay as well.

Fire-Dragon-DoL• 3 years ago

I'm a software dev and it would be depressing if AI took over. The part I enjoy the most is solving a problem, which seems to require imagination and deep understanding of the problem, so there is some hope I can retire while still doing something similar.

Am4TIfIsER0ppos• 3 years ago

subsistence farming because at that point: fuck society

bradlys• 3 years ago

Probably just pivot into product. It won't ever take over my profession but it's a nice thought.

mikewarot• 3 years ago

If I hadn't gotten pushed out of the labor force by Long Covid, I'd still be making gears, and gear like objects, in a job shop. Producing real goods that have value to society in small batches.

Artisanal Gears? ;-)

I'd like to make a small machine that turns out gear hobs. I'd also like to figure out how to skive bevel gears, which is impossible at present, because the pitch of the tooth varies across its face.

moomoo11• 3 years ago

Become an explorer I guess. Go to Mars and beyond for the glory of Mankind! OORAH!

throwaway6753092• 3 years ago

Head back overseas and resume my post as an ESL instructor, I usually swap between doing software engineering and ESL every few years anyway.

Ask HN: What career would you switch into if AI ate your profession?

Related Stories