I’d be very cautious in attending college at this point. Inexpensive/in state schools only. Whatever you can afford without massive loans. No majoring in: computer science, accounting, and absolutely nothing writing/liberal arts-related. But it seems that health care majors, education, and some engineering is safer.

But really the best bet seems to be going into a career/trade or more blue collar field. It still requires specialized education and training. Even for factory jobs. But it seems like we’re going to just say that robots can write our news articles and our books, do our taxes, analyze data, etc. because computing power is cheap - but they can’t do electrical or plumbing work, or fix a car engine, or do the physical labor of attending to patients at a hospital, or do the whole assembly of a car at a big auto factory. Honestly the safest bet if a kid can handle it seems to be joining the military …

Will you dystopians please STFU?

You don't think the human race that got us from hunter gatherers to today can't figure out anything to do to create value in the future except be a pet to a technology?

The economy sucks right now but most of us are better off than medieval royalty at a minimum because our chance of dying before we get old is so small.

I think people b.s.'ing about AI are scaring the weak-minded into accepting tech bro garbage.

Uber was supposed to transform the world. Instead it hurt taxi drivers and benefits rich drunk people.

AI slop provides us with an easy way to implement the 80/20 rule at work. Hooray! It doesn't mean we don't need people to do jobs.

Anonymous wrote:I really don’t get this idea… if all jobs go away and there is no ability for anyone to make money, literally all economies collapse. Certainly that can’t and won’t happen…

Correct. And rich billionaires have to have paying customers, no? Societal collapse will lead to chaos. Chaos is bad for selling.

Besides China is producing military drones, robot soldiers and Japan is producing electricity generating satellites - so everyone will now replicate it. And all of that will also require massive resources and raw material to build. Think about it, even a few data centers and servers to host bitcoins are right now consuming massive resources.

The trends I am seeing, imagining and am preparing for -
- AI and robotics actually becomes very efficient but since they are extremely costly to build and operate - they will be used in high returns industries or endeavors. So, yes, a lot of white collar jobs will go away or morph into something else - because companies will save money on employee salaries when they switch to AI.

- More service industries will come in where robots and AI will do jobs that are not being done well today - childcare, household care, elder care, health, deliveries, custom goods, trash disposal & recycling, afforestation and restoring habitats, green homes, local food production, food preservation. In medicine and genetics, I believe we will see amazing leaps. There will also be a trend to have basic healthcare and diagnostics at home, through AI.

- White collar jobs that remains will become extremely productive and AI usage will be a tool to create value-add - community-based, customer service, long term objectives, humanitarian, ecological, health-based, education-based, conservation, defence etc. So college education (or some kind of similar on-line learning) will become more important and humans will need to be well educated in both STEM and Humanities to be able to give better prompts to AI. Idiots cannot use AI well.

- We will also have a slew of horrifying wars, pandemics, climate collapse and resource scarcity in near future. Because both the haves and have-nots will fight for resources. Will it lead to - a new world or destroyed world? God knows.

- Worsening air and water quality. Plankton will die off suddenly (overnight) because of increase in global warming and increase in sea temperatures - leading to a terrible shortage of oxygen and massive extinction of marine and land life all of a sudden. So, right now - grow as much trees and plants as you can, and also maintain your forested lands (without destroying trees) so that you can prevent forest fires.

- I think we are at the cusp where we will have to adapt new ways of living (and China seems to be doing it well at least in big cities), where we will have to unpave this world, move people into multi-storied buildings and convert the land back to forests and wild areas.

- I also see a lot of anger towards the richy-rich. I am imagining they will be assasinated or killed similar to the French Revolution. We will see upheaval.

When my parents started sharing their gifting plan, one of my siblings’ spouses suddenly wanted to stop working and be a SAHD. He was “burnt out”. Another sibling-in-law started sending even more money to their own parents.

I have also had this thought.

No, our kids are very bright. We paid for them to go to very good colleges. We bought them nice used cars. After that they were on their own. And they're doing great.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With the rise of AI, I'm realizing that I will need to support my kids financially forever. We are stopping at 2 kids. I'm a doctor and I think aspects of my job are safe but the competition to get into medicine and other AI saf(ish) jobs will be too much. I'm expecting to pay for downpayment, my grandkids, etc. Are you all planning accordingly?

Well, no shit. Since we are not going to live forever...maybe another 20 years (till 80) if we have a good running, we are not thinking forever. But, here is our plan.

- continue living a MC life even though we are UMC.
- pay fully for college (and college years), and make sure that they go to state flagship on merit scholarship. No use wasting money on expensive college when jobs are going to go away. Make them major in in-demand major. Encourage them to continue to get more education and skills to become more resilient.
- pay fully for their wedding.
- pay fully for setting up their first rented apartment when they get a job in another city - furniture, furnishing, gadgets and appliances, all digital devices, sports gear, exercise gear, luggage, first professional wardrobe. First 6 months of rent. New car. 20K seed money.
- let the kids stay free with us in our home for as long as they want. Including their spouse and kids. If they want to stay forever? Ok.
- provide childcare, pay for a nanny and cleaner if they are living away from us and have small kids.
- let them stay on our medical insurance until they are 25. Even if they are working.
- make them bank 2 years of their salary first, before they get married. encourage them to find the right partner and marry early. encourage them to date for marriage.
- be open to building an ADU in our backyard or extending our house.
- let our savings remain as is, live/save our fat pension, give them the non-taxable cash gift each year.

This is pretty much basic stuff my Italian family did and many immigrants do. Except paying for kids to live in another city.

Same. Worst case they will inherit a house each and have to move their cousins in. We have enough yard to grow some small vegetables for survival. They might have to live off interest.

Neither I nor my parents could afford med school, so alas we are not planning accordingly... lucky you, OP.

There will be UBI. Not worried.

One of our children has a mental disorder and the other was diagnosed with a degenerative disease, so in our case it's not because of AI, but because of serious concerns about their health. We were always planning to build generational wealth, OP, which means, if necessary, that our children could support themselves on the assets we've created in the event their careers are not successful. We hope they won't have to, of course, because that would mean their health has really deteriorated.

Anonymous wrote:No I expect them to have jobs but perhaps not high earning ones. So I do kind of think we will end up buying them apartments or houses. They will have to pay for ongoing costs like upkeep and taxes.

+1

Also, I was always hoping to route them into meaningful, lower-earning jobs anyway and not predatory, unethical crap like PE, IB, consulting, etc. If that meant we would subside them, so be it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With the rise of AI, I'm realizing that I will need to support my kids financially forever. We are stopping at 2 kids. I'm a doctor and I think aspects of my job are safe but the competition to get into medicine and other AI saf(ish) jobs will be too much. I'm expecting to pay for downpayment, my grandkids, etc. Are you all planning accordingly?

Well, no shit. Since we are not going to live forever...maybe another 20 years (till 80) if we have a good running, we are not thinking forever. But, here is our plan.

- continue living a MC life even though we are UMC.
- pay fully for college (and college years), and make sure that they go to state flagship on merit scholarship. No use wasting money on expensive college when jobs are going to go away. Make them major in in-demand major. Encourage them to continue to get more education and skills to become more resilient.
- pay fully for their wedding.
- pay fully for setting up their first rented apartment when they get a job in another city - furniture, furnishing, gadgets and appliances, all digital devices, sports gear, exercise gear, luggage, first professional wardrobe. First 6 months of rent. New car. 20K seed money.
- let the kids stay free with us in our home for as long as they want. Including their spouse and kids. If they want to stay forever? Ok.
- provide childcare, pay for a nanny and cleaner if they are living away from us and have small kids.
- let them stay on our medical insurance until they are 25. Even if they are working.
- make them bank 2 years of their salary first, before they get married. encourage them to find the right partner and marry early. encourage them to date for marriage.
- be open to building an ADU in our backyard or extending our house.
- let our savings remain as is, live/save our fat pension, give them the non-taxable cash gift each year.

WTF am I reading? Are your kids incapable idiots?

Nope. Extremely capable kids.

Just giving them the economic leg-ups in their youth that we can afford to give. We are not wealthy, we are slightly UMC.

Oh - we will also buy personal robots powered by AI for them and us - 40K a pop - if it ever comes on the market. The subsequent savings and benefits will be enormous.

Now I know you're just shitposting.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With the rise of AI, I'm realizing that I will need to support my kids financially forever. We are stopping at 2 kids. I'm a doctor and I think aspects of my job are safe but the competition to get into medicine and other AI saf(ish) jobs will be too much. I'm expecting to pay for downpayment, my grandkids, etc. Are you all planning accordingly?

Well, no shit. Since we are not going to live forever...maybe another 20 years (till 80) if we have a good running, we are not thinking forever. But, here is our plan.

- continue living a MC life even though we are UMC.
- pay fully for college (and college years), and make sure that they go to state flagship on merit scholarship. No use wasting money on expensive college when jobs are going to go away. Make them major in in-demand major. Encourage them to continue to get more education and skills to become more resilient.
- pay fully for their wedding.
- pay fully for setting up their first rented apartment when they get a job in another city - furniture, furnishing, gadgets and appliances, all digital devices, sports gear, exercise gear, luggage, first professional wardrobe. First 6 months of rent. New car. 20K seed money.
- let the kids stay free with us in our home for as long as they want. Including their spouse and kids. If they want to stay forever? Ok.
- provide childcare, pay for a nanny and cleaner if they are living away from us and have small kids.
- let them stay on our medical insurance until they are 25. Even if they are working.
- make them bank 2 years of their salary first, before they get married. encourage them to find the right partner and marry early. encourage them to date for marriage.
- be open to building an ADU in our backyard or extending our house.
- let our savings remain as is, live/save our fat pension, give them the non-taxable cash gift each year.

How exactly are you going to MAKE your adult children do anything with their money? You are way too enmeshed.

We have one kid with special needs who will never be able to live unassisted or hold a real job, so we’ve been preparing for this all along. Other kid will be a teacher which is one of the last things that AI will come for.