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What young workers are doing to AI-proof themselves

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Re: What young workers are doing to AI-proof themselves

#101

Post by theteapot »

ilaksh wrote: post #90

There is no such thing as an AI-proof career. Look at recent output from leading edge humanoid robotics projects like 1X/Neo, Figure 03, Skild AI. Also see open published work like MimicDroid, HDMI, GenMimic, Humanoid-Union Dataset, RoboMirror, Being-H0 Figure 03: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-31-KBBuXM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUTzuhkDG3w 1X Neo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS_z60kjVEk Skild AI https:…

I dunno. I trained as a software engineer, pivoted to civil laborer. I just can't see a robot doing 90% of the stuff I do anytime soon. Same goes for plumber, electrician, ... even most mobile plant operations. As a supplement around the edges, sure. But replace? Not in the near term. And that's not even considering the safety certification moats around skilled labor roles.

Re: What young workers are doing to AI-proof themselves

#102

Post by vhantz »

ilaksh wrote: post #90

There is no such thing as an AI-proof career. Look at recent output from leading edge humanoid robotics projects like 1X/Neo, Figure 03, Skild AI. Also see open published work like MimicDroid, HDMI, GenMimic, Humanoid-Union Dataset, RoboMirror, Being-H0 Figure 03: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-31-KBBuXM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUTzuhkDG3w 1X Neo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS_z60kjVEk Skild AI https:…

Pfew, if the biggest threat is from humanoid, then there is nothing to worry about

Re: What young workers are doing to AI-proof themselves

#103

Post by yabutlivnWoods »

bilbo0s wrote: post #95
rogerrogerr wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI-proof is probably the wrong way to look at it, but there is substantial advantage in being in one of the _last_ to be automated industries. Social safety nets and such are probably set up by the time the robots come for the last jobs.

> Social safety nets and such are probably set up by the time the robots come for the last jobs. What makes you think "Social safety nets" will be the solution the élites land on? If we were to wargame out different scenarios, we'd likely find there are a lot of potential solutions to the problem of large masses of people who are not useful to the cause of productivity in your society. Giving non-élites a social safe…

On the upside they'll all generationally churn out of life, acting as a forcing function on future decisions.

Time isn't linear. No guarantees we march right along handing batons to the next age group. Which generation will be future elites making the choices come from?

Millennials and GenZ (despite a blip towards Trump in 2024, they blipped hard away from him as his policies of 2025 hit them hardest) are trending progressive as they age.

And Millennials and GenZ outnumber a GenX population that is the only cohort to not sour on Trump. GenX influence will rapidly shrink as Boomers churn out.

No linear time. No single clock all living things tick to. Meaning the population composition is not guaranteed to exist such that the old ways are the future. No guarantee 50 year middle managers waiting patiently end up elites in control. They might be too copy paste and conservative.

https://fortune.com/2025/08/07/gen-x-ceos-decreasing-baby-bo...

Re: What young workers are doing to AI-proof themselves

#104

Post by bizzletk »

xp84 wrote: post #51
Loughla wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is the physical aspect of the trades. The design for wiring can be (and already has been) automated, but you physically need an electrician on site to pull the wires. So I can see a hollowing out of the engineers, but not the actual electricians. That being said, the absolute focus on trades from the fed right now just reeks of the wild pendulum swing. It used to be 'go to college to get a good job' th…

Indeed. If you squint a little, it kind of looks like the machines are trying to shift to a world where we are just meat puppets to do the tricky stuff there aren't robotics for (yet). :(

Or humans are just the "sex organs" that work to bring about the artificial life-forms that come next.

Re: What young workers are doing to AI-proof themselves

#105

Post by deterministic »

denkmoon wrote: post #23
time0ut wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Optimistically, I hope it filters out the people who were only interested in it for the money. When I was in school, decades ago now, very few people went into CS compared to other majors. Everyone I knew going into it did it because they loved it. I would have done it regardless of the career opportunities because I want to build stuff. Interviewing candidates over the years since then, my experience has been there…

Having an industry’s labour supplied only by those inherently passionate about it is a great way to crush wages and working conditions. Look at what companies like Blizzard get away with because their employees just want to make video games at their favourite dev studio. While they’re a pain in the ass sometimes, I welcome the devs who are only here for the cash.

There are plenty of non-games software companies that are treating devs purely.

However almost all of the companies I have worked for in my 30+ years career treated devs well.

So if you are in a shitty situation, I highly recommend finding another job instead of just placing yourself over a barrel.

Re: What young workers are doing to AI-proof themselves

#106

Post by toofy »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #64
striped_hash wrote: post #4

I don’t think kids should be insulating from AI. The examples in this article suggest for example that some people are dropping out of college and going into trade schools. I get that society needs electricians and construction workers and new software graduates are finding it difficult to get jobs. But having had a moderately successful career building software, I tend to think there is a lot of scope for the $40 tr…

The thing I'm seeing in people's use of LLMs is that there's still a strong contrast in technical usage of them. I went to the local Claude Code meetup last week, and the contrast between the first two speakers really stuck with me. The first was an old-skool tech guy who was using teams of agents to basically duplicate what an entire old-fashioned dev team would do. The second was a "non-technical" (she must have sa…

and the things the first person is doing can very very easily be trained into a bot as well.

this doesn’t seem like a safe direction either.

Re: What young workers are doing to AI-proof themselves

#107

Post by CharlieDigital »

theteapot wrote: post #101
ilaksh wrote: post #90

There is no such thing as an AI-proof career. Look at recent output from leading edge humanoid robotics projects like 1X/Neo, Figure 03, Skild AI. Also see open published work like MimicDroid, HDMI, GenMimic, Humanoid-Union Dataset, RoboMirror, Being-H0 Figure 03: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-31-KBBuXM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUTzuhkDG3w 1X Neo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS_z60kjVEk Skild AI https:…

I dunno. I trained as a software engineer, pivoted to civil laborer. I just can't see a robot doing 90% of the stuff I do anytime soon. Same goes for plumber, electrician, ... even most mobile plant operations. As a supplement around the edges, sure. But replace? Not in the near term. And that's not even considering the safety certification moats around skilled labor roles.

I'm think event photography is another.

It's one thing to use AI to touch up photos, but in the end, you probably still want photos that match your memories and good photography still has an element of taste and creativity.

Re: What young workers are doing to AI-proof themselves

#108

Post by nprateem »

jongjong wrote: post #28

Disturbingly, AI is set to replace essentially any position that is useful, to the extent that it is useful and somehow some people still think they should adapt themselves to the system instead of working to adapt the system to them! Basically all that would be left of desk jobs would be those which have unfair legal powers (including via licenses and credentials) or are pure accountability plays. Like politicians,…

And yet someone has to actually tell the AI what to create. There's just no avoiding this.

Anyway before this AI doomerism can become reality AI first needs the breakthrough of genuine understanding to stop making stupid mistakes. Imitation will always remain imitation.

There must be eg an understanding of casualty and reasoning on the same level as we have, not the useless "You're absolutely right" you get now when you point it its mistakes.

Re: What young workers are doing to AI-proof themselves

#109

Post by asdff »

F7F7F7 wrote: post #61
crop_rotation wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if people assume the worst impacts of LLMs on white collar work, there is simply not enough demand for electricians and plumbers for that to work, right now these professions work only because the number of people going into them is limited.

You sound like you're not a home owner. In populated areas it could take a week to get a electrician or plumber out. And contractors are hard to find.

It takes a week because if you want it fast they charge you an emergency rate. This aspect of the tradesman is independent of demand and one of the perks of their lines of work much like over time in other fields.

Re: What young workers are doing to AI-proof themselves

#110

Post by porknubbins »

bilbo0s wrote: post #95
rogerrogerr wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI-proof is probably the wrong way to look at it, but there is substantial advantage in being in one of the _last_ to be automated industries. Social safety nets and such are probably set up by the time the robots come for the last jobs.

> Social safety nets and such are probably set up by the time the robots come for the last jobs. What makes you think "Social safety nets" will be the solution the élites land on? If we were to wargame out different scenarios, we'd likely find there are a lot of potential solutions to the problem of large masses of people who are not useful to the cause of productivity in your society. Giving non-élites a social safe…

If elites do not provide a social safety net why would the masses respect their elite status and resource endowments anyway?

Unless you are suggesting billionaires build private armies in some sort of neo feudalism, there are no elites who are not dependant on the existing social structure.

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