AI could replace 100M jobs by 2035. Are you talking to DCs about “safe” majors?

[Anonymous]

This article was posted in the Politics forum.

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5541307-ai-automation-job-replacement/amp/

Obviously there are parents here that have children considering majors that would lead to careers that are more insulated from AI than others. The die has already been cast for my children, but I’m curious if parents of students working towards college are having “the talk” with their children? College is a major investment for anyone. How are you helping your children hedge against AI?

[Anonymous]

We thought the internet would mean we'd work 3-4 hour days and lots of jobs would go away.

Point is there are always jobs that emerge due to technological advances that we can't conceive of in advance. A broad, liberal arts education usually means someone has the skills to adapt. Some of the more "vocational," job-specific majors might have an issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We thought the internet would mean we'd work 3-4 hour days and lots of jobs would go away.

Point is there are always jobs that emerge due to technological advances that we can't conceive of in advance. A broad, liberal arts education usually means someone has the skills to adapt. Some of the more "vocational," job-specific majors might have an issue.

AI experts themselves have noted that this technology is singular in human history as we know it, in that it is likely NOT to create the volume of jobs to replace those being displaced by it.

I think it’s insane that Congress and other bodies haven’t done more to address AI. It is going to utterly upend life as we know it, and already is.

[Anonymous]

I think they're full of it here. We just an issue where I work with translation work that was clearly done by a machine. It's understanding of context and intent is nil, so it doesn't know how to pick the correct word to use when there are multiple possibilities. You need a human to do it right.

AI books are getting trashed in reviews on Amazon and goodreads.

Customers and clients are furious when they can't talk to a human.


Gen AI has a place, but it'll take time for us to figure out exactly where it can do good work and be trusted.

[Anonymous]

I think the AI bubble will have burst long before my kids get to college.

[Anonymous]

safest major might be plumbing and HVAC. no one wants to fix their own toilet and need the home to be always at the most comfortable temperature.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:safest major might be plumbing and HVAC. no one wants to fix their own toilet and need the home to be always at the most comfortable temperature.

A few weeks ago I spent a few hours snaking an outside drain at my house. Yeah, not exactly a good time.

[Anonymous]

lol. What do these people Think an historian does? Look up and report facts? It’s already so rare to do any history-related job. More so they know how to think— historians interpret events, write books and do other general knowledge-worker jobs.

[Anonymous]

Is the 100M jobs US only? We only have ~330M people in the country and a bunch of those are kids/elderly.

Can only pay for a plumber, electrician, etc if one has money to pay for one. If things get tight, more people will DIY out of necessity.

I have no doubt AI will change things substantially, particularly in certain industries. But I think it's hard to project how exactly work will change. Consider how many new jobs exist now that didn't just 20 years ago. I work in a space that didn't exist now made possible by technological advances in many different industries. I don't know that we can say AI won't do the same.

I think students now should think of their education as preparing for a rapidly changing environment. Learning how to learn, Learning to synthesize inputs from a variety of sources, etc At a time when it seems there is a push toward 'job ready' today, there is a risk of missing out on laying a solid foundation for rapid change.

Trades will be needed of course, but if that catches on, it will burn itself out like every other job/industry 'trend'. It gets saturated, pay drops, jobs getting harder to find. Rinse and repeat

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We thought the internet would mean we'd work 3-4 hour days and lots of jobs would go away.

Point is there are always jobs that emerge due to technological advances that we can't conceive of in advance. A broad, liberal arts education usually means someone has the skills to adapt. Some of the more "vocational," job-specific majors might have an issue.

It’s not either/or. You need marketable skills in order to get your first job out of college. You need adaptability in order to continue working for the next 40+ years. And you also need a strong knowledge base to adapt, because when new specialties emerge, you need to be able to jump in before the colleges create new majors and start flooding the market.

[Anonymous]

I think it’s really impossible to know and will depend in part on where the significant AI develops happen. Like if they really focused on making AI good at medicine they could probably replace both primary care physicians and dentists as well as radiologists.

But if history is any guide, a lot of effort will go into things like p@rn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:safest major might be plumbing and HVAC. no one wants to fix their own toilet and need the home to be always at the most comfortable temperature.

Spot on! NVIDIA's Jensen predicted newly created jobs for hundreds of thousands electricians, plumbers and carpenters in the next few years. Wake up call for all DCUM parents to rethink their DC's college aspirations. Local community college offering trade apprenticeships, such as Montgomery College, will be flushed with new Workforce Pell Grant starting July 2026. Why spend $400K and 4 years of DC's life, only to have them come home unemployed? They are better off getting federally paid training and apprenticeship for 24 months, with guaranteed $100K+ job in the booming AI industry.

https://fortune.com/2025/09/30/nvidia-ceo-jensen-huang-demand-for-gen-z-skilled-trade-workers-electricans-plumbers-carpenters-data-center-growth-six-figure-salaries/

https://www.tiktok.com/@c4news/video/7551389307303382294

https://www.montgomerycollege.edu/academics/programs/building-trades-technology/index.html

[Anonymous]

Historians? We certainly don't want AI hallucinations in history books.
I have ES kids, it's still important to write well and formulate one's ideas, it's what makes you human. I wouldn't send them for a CPA or other data driven careers as that's where AI really is worthwhile and generating useful outputs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is the 100M jobs US only? We only have ~330M people in the country and a bunch of those are kids/elderly.

Can only pay for a plumber, electrician, etc if one has money to pay for one. If things get tight, more people will DIY out of necessity.

I have no doubt AI will change things substantially, particularly in certain industries. But I think it's hard to project how exactly work will change. Consider how many new jobs exist now that didn't just 20 years ago. I work in a space that didn't exist now made possible by technological advances in many different industries. I don't know that we can say AI won't do the same.

I think students now should think of their education as preparing for a rapidly changing environment. Learning how to learn, Learning to synthesize inputs from a variety of sources, etc At a time when it seems there is a push toward 'job ready' today, there is a risk of missing out on laying a solid foundation for rapid change.

Trades will be needed of course, but if that catches on, it will burn itself out like every other job/industry 'trend'. It gets saturated, pay drops, jobs getting harder to find. Rinse and repeat

I agee with this and also think the people that think trades won’t be affected are fooling themselves. You think they can’t develop an AI controlled robot to do plumbing work? Trades have already been affected by tech development and advances in manufacturing.

AI might generate more work for historians and similar actually. Like people thought legal research tools would make legal work faster but it actually makes it slower because how you can find literally thousands of relevant cases that you have to think through (whereas old timey briefs would only cite a couple big cases). If AI can really summarize and reconstruct some of the very old historical records, that might give historians a whole fresh take on things to write about. They way DNA analysis is now opening up whole new avenues in archaeology.

But I do feel like sooner or later the shite will hit the fan with all this. The world probably just needs fewer people. Which is probably okay in the long run.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We thought the internet would mean we'd work 3-4 hour days and lots of jobs would go away.

Point is there are always jobs that emerge due to technological advances that we can't conceive of in advance. A broad, liberal arts education usually means someone has the skills to adapt. Some of the more "vocational," job-specific majors might have an issue.

Yes, Bill Gates is continuing this talking point. Three-day work weeks and such. Obviously, it's not going to happen unless there is some kind of political revolution.

As with the other economic miracles of the last 200 years, the benefits of AI will accrue to the ultra-wealthy. You'll either be indigent or still slogging 50-hour weeks under bad lighting. The idea that the AI overlords are (this time, we promise!) going to broadly distribute the gains is *absolute fantasy*. Have you met humans?