Two things are happening simultaneously.

First, the advancements we see in AI are moving at an exponential rate. Humans don’t really understand how to look at exponential growth because everything in front of them moves faster than what they’ve already experienced.

How many years did it take from the time light bulbs were invented until they were in most houses? I don’t know, but it took a long while. Chat GPT was used by over 100 million people in less than 2 months. And the ability of tools like this are increasing in ability exponentially as well. It’s like we’ve gone warp speed from tungsten and incandescent lights to LED’s in a matter of months rather than years and years.

The other thing happening right now is that for the first time at scale, it’s white collar, not blue collar jobs that are being threatened. Accountants, writers, analysts, coders, are all looking over their shoulder wondering when AI will make most of their jobs redundant. Meanwhile, we are many years away from a robot trying to figure out and repair a bathroom or ceiling leak. Sure, there will be some new tools to help, but I don’t think a plumbing home repair person is something AI is threatening to replace any time soon.

These two things happening so quickly are going to change the future value in careers. Whole sectors will be reinvented. New sectors will emerge. But where does that leave the 20-year accountant in a large firm that finds it can cut staffing by 2/3rds? What careers are not going to be worth going to university for 4+ years for? The safest jobs right now are the trades, and while they too will be challenged as we get AI into autonomous humanoid robots, the immediate threat seen in white collar jobs are not the same for blue collar professions (as opposed to blue collar factory workers, who are equally threatened by exponential changes).

These changes are single-digit years as opposed to decades away… and I’m not sure we are ready to handle the speed at which these changes are coming?