Which Careers Should Kids Pursue in an AI-Dominated World?

AI is already impacting our children’s lives in the same way “Calculators” impacted my “Baby Boomer” generation. Initially, they were banned from exam environments but quickly became de facto tools as educators realised that “Mental Arithmetic” was doomed in a workplace dominated by spreadsheets and calculators.

Is humanity worse off because we have lost traditional skills such as Map reading, the ability to remember friends’ mobile numbers or the advent of “attention deficits” created by the explosion in social media? Potentially, but unlikely, unless a third world war destroys the world's infrastructure.

Open AI created the ability to “Watermark” AI-generated content 12 months ago, allowing educational authorities to instantly spot “cheats” using AI to write/improve their coursework or exam essays. However, interestingly, it has not released the tool, as research shows that over 30% of users would abandon it for less scrupulous AI tools.

Personally, I think that just like with calculators, education needs to evolve quickly to accept the existence of AI and prepare our children for a digital world dominated by AI.

Although training children's brains to focus for extended periods may involve reading and analysing large textbooks, the fundamental skills required will be understanding how to use digital tools to source information.

The ability to accurately "phrase" a question and delve into answers using AI tools has never been more relevant. This skill requires training, and the capability to navigate our digital world must be incorporated into the curriculum immediately.

Another rapidly evolving topic is who owns the “knowledge of the Internet”?

Large language models like ChatGPT have stripped the Internet of content to train their models on the assumption that this content is fair game as it has been published online. However, publishers like the New York Times, which copywrite their content, are already taking legal action to stop this, so it will be fascinating to see how this is resolved.

I believe that within the next 15-20 years, the "incremental cost" of creating knowledge will plummet to near zero, with knowledge freely accessible to everyone through open-source technologies, marking the true inflexion point of AI.

Humanity has always been a production engine of knowledge, with scientific breakthroughs enhancing our standard of living. Still, the AI Revolution is set to turbo-charge our creativity and working efficiency.

It also poses significant threats as "corporations" grow so large and powerful that they surpass state control. Fundamentally, AI requires vast amounts of "compute," which only large corporations like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon can afford, likely resulting in these companies becoming even larger.

Interestingly, simultaneously, low-cost access via open-source LLMs will make the raw materials of “Entrepreneurship" cheaper and more freely available than ever.

However, the only protection for these new ideas lies in the size and scale of their user bases, with speed to market and consumer "stickiness" offering the sole defensibility in a world where technology can be instantly replicated

AI tools are anticipated to establish a new business ecosystem where small, agile businesses thrive alongside the giant LLM enterprises that supply the "computing" fuel for their operations.

Markets will "globalise" as the language capabilities of LLMs eliminate the language barriers fragmenting European markets, enabling ideas to scale more rapidly across these "mega" consumer markets, similar to the advantages enjoyed by U.S. firms over the past 50 years.

A crucial driver of national economic prosperity for a country like the UK will be the computing power it can support with its energy generation and National Grid network. The Labour government has established "GB Energy" to regain control over energy production and enhance clean energy sources such as wind, solar, and nuclear. However, the UK must also make substantial investments in its electricity distribution network, or National Grid, to ensure that this power can be efficiently delivered across the country to where it is needed to power new data centres.

In summary, encourage your children to be "open-minded" toward new technology, learn to navigate a digitally driven AI world, and speak multiple languages to maintain a personal touch in an increasingly global marketplace.

The AI genie is out of the bottle, and the world will never be the same, so adapt and ensure your children's education evolves to meet its demands.