With the rise of AI what is the value of college education?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I know that no MD at an investment bank or PE firm is going to learn to use it…so they will still need analysts to churn shit out.

+1 the people who will be employable are the ones who know how to use AI well to do their jobs. It's not like you just hire one person to do all the stuff that needs to be done within an organization. You just need 5 vs when maybe 25. You also have to verify the AI output.

So if you just need 5 vs 25, what happens to the 20 college-educated kids?

It won't be 5 vs. 25...it will probably be more like 15 vs. 25 because as an example in the IBanking world if an MD decides to do a marketing/sales trip to SV prior to AI they may have analysts produce 5 pitchdecks on transactions to pitch to companies. Now with AI they will have them produce 25 pitchdecks in the same amount of time. They probably won't pitch all 25, but they will look at them and select the best 10 ideas.

To answer your question...you have to believe that AI will spawn new industries and new jobs that these people will take. Think of all the jobs the Internet created while at the same time the number of travel agents has declined I think 95%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

+1 the people who will be employable are the ones who know how to use AI well to do their jobs. It's not like you just hire one person to do all the stuff that needs to be done within an organization. You just need 5 vs when maybe 25. You also have to verify the AI output.

So if you just need 5 vs 25, what happens to the 20 college-educated kids?

I know that no MD at an investment bank or PE firm is going to learn to use it…so they will still need analysts to churn shit out.

Then those people will be replaced by cheaper workers who can use AI to do that job.

You clearly don't understand what it means to be an MD/principal at one of these firms. The job at this point is to be a sales person bringing in business or convincing a company to sell to you...having enough experience to know which people/company you should bet on...having understanding of complex financing structures and some tax/legal/accounting issues, etc.

This is why senior people won't be replaced. Much of their jobs isn't completing specific, easily defined tasks. That is the job of the most junior people (analysts and associates). If anything, the senior people will make that much more $$$s.

Which isn't to say they will sit back and be luddites. It's just that they won't be experts in using AI in the sausage-making.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-95-salespeople-replaced-ai-within-20-years-microsoft-matthew-king

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

+1 the people who will be employable are the ones who know how to use AI well to do their jobs. It's not like you just hire one person to do all the stuff that needs to be done within an organization. You just need 5 vs when maybe 25. You also have to verify the AI output.

So if you just need 5 vs 25, what happens to the 20 college-educated kids?

I know that no MD at an investment bank or PE firm is going to learn to use it…so they will still need analysts to churn shit out.

Then those people will be replaced by cheaper workers who can use AI to do that job.

These are people making $10MM+ per year. If the company wanted to save money, they would simply just promote their best VPs to take the job and pay them say $2MM per year.

There is a reason they don't just do this if the person you are replacing is possibly responsible for $100MM+ of revenue (not to mention deep personal relationships with many CEOs/CFOs at top companies in their space).

[Anonymous]

Good morning, AI Doomsday poster. You are very creative!
Most jobs that require a college education cannot be replaced by AI. Obviously tech and digital work are the exceptions, but others need education to execute.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

+1 the people who will be employable are the ones who know how to use AI well to do their jobs. It's not like you just hire one person to do all the stuff that needs to be done within an organization. You just need 5 vs when maybe 25. You also have to verify the AI output.

So if you just need 5 vs 25, what happens to the 20 college-educated kids?

I know that no MD at an investment bank or PE firm is going to learn to use it…so they will still need analysts to churn shit out.

Then those people will be replaced by cheaper workers who can use AI to do that job.

You clearly don't understand what it means to be an MD/principal at one of these firms. The job at this point is to be a sales person bringing in business or convincing a company to sell to you...having enough experience to know which people/company you should bet on...having understanding of complex financing structures and some tax/legal/accounting issues, etc.

This is why senior people won't be replaced. Much of their jobs isn't completing specific, easily defined tasks. That is the job of the most junior people (analysts and associates). If anything, the senior people will make that much more $$$s.

Which isn't to say they will sit back and be luddites. It's just that they won't be experts in using AI in the sausage-making.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-95-salespeople-replaced-ai-within-20-years-microsoft-matthew-king

That's selling easily understood products and services. It's not as though a Managing Director at Goldman calls up Google and asks "how many M&A deals do you want to sign up for this year. Here's my rate sheet"

It's possible AI could replace some sales people on the trading desks, although if it screws up it could cost a client tens of millions, so one has to think a human is involved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In its current state, AI is terrible. It would need so much improvement to be a functional replacement for the human brain. Ask the series of lawyers getting sanctioned for using AI and committing malpractice. It’s junk in and junk out. I don’t see how that will ever change.

You’re right about everything except the last sentence. It is getting better every day, and will soon match, and then surpass, human intelligence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Its value is yet unclear. Ezra Klein speaks with an expert about this very subject in this podcast episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ezra-klein-show/id1548604447?i=1000708298931

Ezra Klein is irrelevant.

[Anonymous]

If anything, AI will probably help bring college costs WAY down so more people can get a college degree. As with every revolution (from First to third Industrial or "Internet" revolution), some jobs will fade away never to return, only to be replaced by new jobs in new fields.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:AI is crap and using it a lot makes your brain mush.

Either our country becomes even more stupid and sedentary, or we vote for politicians who will regulate AI.

I hope the latter. Please rush the enlightenment.

This.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In its current state, AI is terrible. It would need so much improvement to be a functional replacement for the human brain. Ask the series of lawyers getting sanctioned for using AI and committing malpractice. It’s junk in and junk out. I don’t see how that will ever change.

You’re right about everything except the last sentence. It is getting better every day, and will soon match, and then surpass, human intelligence.

I don’t think so. AI scans a bunch of info and spits out an answer. If AI is using the internet, we have no way of limiting false information. The analysis will not be correct if the underlying data is incorrect. The resources scanned would need to be verified. In today’s society, we have no facts. Everything is subject to interpretation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In its current state, AI is terrible. It would need so much improvement to be a functional replacement for the human brain. Ask the series of lawyers getting sanctioned for using AI and committing malpractice. It’s junk in and junk out. I don’t see how that will ever change.

You’re right about everything except the last sentence. It is getting better every day, and will soon match, and then surpass, human intelligence.

I don’t think so. AI scans a bunch of info and spits out an answer. If AI is using the internet, we have no way of limiting false information. The analysis will not be correct if the underlying data is incorrect. The resources scanned would need to be verified. In today’s society, we have no facts. Everything is subject to interpretation.

The only AI I see these days making mistakes is google's search AI, which is bad. Have you tried chatgpt o3?

[Anonymous]

I’m just a humble high school history teacher. I don’t live in the DC area but work at a private school. Recently school leadership asked what was the point of learning certain things, which basically included history.

It seems to me that the college model might fall apart, however, given that our economy is built on consumption, who is going to buy all the stuff if no one has an income? I can’t tell if it’s hype or a realistic scenario.

I’m cultivating mental flexibility. Who knows what’s going to happen?

[Anonymous]

I think you are confusing college with vocational school. College is to develop us into better thinkers.
Vocational school's mission to learn and skill / trade and use that to secure a livelihood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Good morning, AI Doomsday poster. You are very creative!
Most jobs that require a college education cannot be replaced by AI. Obviously tech and digital work are the exceptions, but others need education to execute.

+1 but also please stay in the Jobs forum where you’ve established yourself as a daily poster on this topic.