Recently I started to ponder upon artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning and how they are impacting our lives. The more books and online postings I read, the more I get concerned about the future job perspectives and quality of life we and our kids will be facing.
With more data and cheaper hardware becoming easily available and more clever algorithms being developed, machines are becoming more “intelligent” and cost effective for companies to adopt. We’ll see lots of jobs that used to provide good stable middle class incomes being replaced by AI machines. Job demands that require analytic skills such as legal assistants, office workers, medical assistants, and even lawyers and pharmacists will shrink because the significant improvement of efficiency/productivity and the widespread automation. The world will soon only need a few highly specialized and productive AI/robotics engineers and their marvelous AI machines. The vast majority of current middle class jobs will be vanishing.
What does this mean for our children? When I looked at the latest college labor market statistics for the new college graduates, more than 1/3 of them are underemployed. With machines replacing more middle class jobs, the future does not look promising. With the high cost of higher education in US, our kids have to borrow a large sum of student loans to get through the education. But after getting the credentials (even including the currently-desirable STEM degrees), they will face the grim reality of unemployment and underemployment because the new economy that is filled with AI machines just no longer needs that many people with analytic skills. The machines are just cheaper and “better” than humans with average intelligence handling analytic jobs.
I used to believe STEM is where the jobs are going to be. Yes for the highly smart and enlightened few wiz kids, the future is still as bright as it can be. But what about the kids in the middle part of the Bell curve? Where should they be fitting into the new economy? I am really not sure…
P.S. I found this post very helpful in understanding the situation.
