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AI takes down EDU-giant

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From the Wall Street Journal:

“How ChatGPT Brought Down an Online Education Giant
Chegg’s stock is down 99%, and students looking for homework help are defecting to ChatGPT”

This is an excellent example of job loss due to AI. From the article:

“Since ChatGPT’s launch, Chegg has lost more than half a million subscribers who pay up to $19.95 a month for prewritten answers to textbook questions and on-demand help from experts. Its stock is down 99% from early 2021, erasing some $14.5 billion of market value.”

Chegg is a clear loser, but so is just about every website that offered to write essays for students. Imagine watching your profits disappear and seeing your entire business model collapse before your eyes.

This is just one example. There are many fields and jobs that either have disappeared or are going to disappear. Just think about the shift that’s already happening. People who thought they were in stable jobs, stable careers, are now realizing that they might be obsolete.

There will be new jobs, but more often than not there will be a condensing of jobs… one person where there used to be five, maybe ten people. For example, if a company had 5 writers producing daily articles for websites, they could lay off all but their best writer, who now acts as an editor for articles written by AI. Keep the person that understands the audience best, and that person ensures the AI writing is on point.

Code writing, data analysis, legal services, finance, and as mentioned above, media and marketing, these are but a handful of areas where AI is going to undermine the job market. And jobs are going to disappear, if they haven’t already. This has been something mentioned a lot, but the demise of a company like Chegg, with no vision for how they can pivot, is a perfect example of how this isn’t just a problem of the future, it’s happening right now.

Where will this lead in the next 5 years? What does the future job market look like?

Will there be new jobs? Of course! Will the job loss outpace the creation of new jobs? Very likely. And so where does that lead us?

Maybe it’s time to take a hard look at Universal Basic Income. Maybe it’s time to embrace AI and really think about how to use it in a way that helps us prosper, rather than to help us write emails and word things better. Maybe it’s time to accept that the AI infused world we live in now is going to undermine the current job market, and forever change whole industries. This isn’t some dystopian future, this is happening right now.

“How good are my AI prompts?”

Two thoughts about yesterday’s post, ‘Playing with Chat GPT‘:

1. I used the plural phrase ‘Artificial intelligences’ and followed up with, “yes plural, AI is not a single thing”. What’s both exciting and scary is that Chat GPT and other incredible AI tools are revolutionizing markets like health care diagnostics, manufacturing and logistics, coding, customer service and tech support, copy editing and content generation, audio and video editing, and even education. I think anyone who uses these tools can see why it’s exciting, but why do I also say scary? Here are two reasons:

First of all, many of these tools are open source or open access and/or very affordable for anyone to build on top of. This is great, but also permits people to do some pretty nefarious things, like produce deep fakes, and use these tools in increasingly evil ways. And as AI gets better, so does the ability to do greater harm.

Secondly, we are going to see a major decrease in jobs. Now this is under debate, with some people thinking there will just be a shift in jobs, but I disagree. For example, you own an online website that hires content 10 content writers to produce daily content to get new articles in front of your readers. You lay off 7 of them, keeping your best ones, and you have them use Chat GPT to write articles similar to the best, most popular ones on your site, and the 3 best remaining editors tweak the AI writing, make it better, easily doing the work of 10 writers. 

This kind of shift isn’t happening with just Chat GPT, there are more and more AI tools that are quickly shifting the need to less staff, who are more creative and innovative, to do jobs many more people did. If you are an elegant coder or excellent problem-solving tech support worker, your job is safe. If you are just competent at coding or tech support, an AI can and will do the job better than you, and you won’t be needed much longer. The irony is that your years of providing support will have helped train the very AI replacing you.

This isn’t just about Chat GPT, it’s about a plethora of Artificial Intelligences changing the way we learn, access information, get fooled, and work. And the pace of change will rival the any prior advancement in human history.

2. After publishing yesterday’s post, I went back to Chat GPT to play some more (as seen in the ‘Update’ at the bottom of the post). Three prompts after my original one I had something that was easy to read, and would take just one read-over and final edit to be something I could publish, which would be insightful, and difficult to know was AI generated. I ended my update with: The question isn’t how good is the AI tool, the question is, “How good are my prompts?”

…and if your prompts are not that good… just ask Chat GPT to improve them!

Here are a couple Twitter threads with some insightful prompts for Chat GPT.

Helping students with job hunting

There’s a lesson I do yearly with incoming grade 9’s when they are working on resumes. I have them fill out a restaurant chain’s application form, and then we discuss what is important to share on application forms and resumes, then they get into threes and do mock interviews, with an interviewer, interviewee, and note-taking observer.

I share my experience as a busy Starbucks manager in a downtown store that received 90-110 applications a week, explaining how I didn’t have time to give applications 1 minute each, because just that first once-over would take me 90 minutes plus… so I’d look at just one question on the application to narrow the 90+ applications down to less than 12 that I looked at more closely. I make a big deal out of bad applications going into my ‘circular filing cabinet’.

I talk to them about how to emphasize strengths on a resume, but be careful not to exaggerate things you can’t really do. Then I share how I got a reference to help me get a job by emphasizing a strength, and I also share an embarrassing story of how I got fired because I exaggerated my abilities on an ordering system in a restaurant.

One interesting thing that happened when I was talking about references this year, was that after sharing a slide saying ‘Your references will be checked’, I shared this slide and talked about how these days potential employers will Google you.

A student who was very active in a local political campaign, in our recent election, asked if his political posts shared on social media could be an issue? I paused and had to say that personally, I like to see students involved in politics at a young age, because it shows that the student cares about the future, and their community, and is willing to volunteer time… However, I felt compelled to add that some people very well might see it as a problem if they disagree with your views. I wouldn’t have shared this a few years ago, but now it is something that I think could affect someone getting an interview. I also added that if a person who is going to be your boss holds your politics against you, they probably aren’t someone you want to work for anyway.

I enjoy doing this lesson with the new Grade 9’s. They get to know me a bit better. They get to laugh at my embarrassing story about getting fired, and the mock interviews prepare many of them for that first job interview that they will soon be doing. Because in the end, the application form and resume only get you in the door, and then the interview is what gets you the job.