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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

#241

Post by IdiocyInAction »

funki wrote: post #228
edwcross wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure how it works in the US, but in some parts of Europe, blue collar trades are currently much better, for several reasons: - Price of housing and associated maintenance keeps rising, and so do small jobs like fixing plumbing, gardening, etc; - You can easily avoid paying VAT if you know how to, so that's a 20% increase, or even more, if you can benefit from social services (e.g. since you don't earn a lot, you…

"You can easily avoid paying VAT if you know how to" Interesting. Would you care to enlighten us on a legal way to do this ?

Most of it is just blatant tax evasion.

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

#242

Post by KoolKat23 »

edwcross wrote: post #225
anthuswilliams wrote: post #135

Summary of article: in an uncertain job market, some young people are going into blue collar trades. Others are starting startups. Others are powering through. Journalist says some words about "AI" being the cause of all this uncertainty.

Not sure how it works in the US, but in some parts of Europe, blue collar trades are currently much better, for several reasons: - Price of housing and associated maintenance keeps rising, and so do small jobs like fixing plumbing, gardening, etc; - You can easily avoid paying VAT if you know how to, so that's a 20% increase, or even more, if you can benefit from social services (e.g. since you don't earn a lot, you…

Here the barriers to entry are high imo but artificial, you need to complete an apprenticeship paid for through opportunity cost of lower wages and less working freedom for a few years.

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

#243

Post by IdiocyInAction »

The article mentions reduced job growth in SWE due to AI but the fed actually says the opposite: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXUSTPSOFTDEVE

The people best suited for implementing and interfacing with LLMs at the moment are still SWEs and at least for the time being AI is actually probably a job creator for SWEs rather than the other way around. This might change.

And Claude has been invaluable for me to fix trade-related things at home, even complex ones. It actually outdid a locksmith!

The most resilient career is probably nursing. Medicine maybe too, not because it's not technically possible but because doctor lobbies are incredibly strong. Healthcare is the largest employer in most states now and with an aging population that's probably where much of the surplus will go and it's a profession that has really meagre productivity gains (cost disease). So nursing might be the answer.

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

#244

Post by lukan »

KoolKat23 wrote: post #242
edwcross wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure how it works in the US, but in some parts of Europe, blue collar trades are currently much better, for several reasons: - Price of housing and associated maintenance keeps rising, and so do small jobs like fixing plumbing, gardening, etc; - You can easily avoid paying VAT if you know how to, so that's a 20% increase, or even more, if you can benefit from social services (e.g. since you don't earn a lot, you…

Here the barriers to entry are high imo but artificial, you need to complete an apprenticeship paid for through opportunity cost of lower wages and less working freedom for a few years.

For gardening jobs as well?

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

#245

Post by r_lee »

saltyoldman wrote: post #98
adamtaylor_13 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wha do you mean these are dead? I work a remote software job and it ain't going anywhere from what I can see.

I could have elaborated, but long term this line of work is dead. Will there be software engineers in 20 years? Can't tell you, but it won't be in the millions like it is now. Will those people KNOW a programming language? probably not. At some point the sheer amount of capabilities of agents will just keep going up and us humans are still writing buggy code. Waymo just declared that it's drivers are something like 1…

"Will those people KNOW a programming language? probably not. "

if I'm able to learn all kinds of stuff in just a few hours, why would programmers 20 years from now not know programming languages?

just doesn't make sense.

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

#246

Post by baxtr »

Epa095 wrote: post #204
baxtr wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn’t say it’s impossible but I’d argue from all we know now highly unlikely. Why? Assume a company has a high margin because they used AI and reduced their workforce by 10x. What usually happens is that a new competitor comes in and offers the same for half the price. Since AI is lowering the bar for entry this process should be even faster than previously.

What usually happens is that that competitors then gets disappeared. Either by a happy ending (it gets bought up), or it gets squeezed out. Monopolies arise naturally unless we work hard to avoid them.

Monopolies stay stable only with a sustainable competitive advantage, eg through network effects or patents.

With no barriers, margins get squeezed out rapidly.

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

#247

Post by baxtr »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #215
baxtr wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn’t say it’s impossible but I’d argue from all we know now highly unlikely. Why? Assume a company has a high margin because they used AI and reduced their workforce by 10x. What usually happens is that a new competitor comes in and offers the same for half the price. Since AI is lowering the bar for entry this process should be even faster than previously.

> Assume a company has a high margin because they used AI and reduced their workforce by 10x. What usually happens is that a new competitor comes in and offers the same for half the price. Wouldn't you need 10x the number of competitors to get back to the same amount of employees, assuming they are running with similar workforces?

Yes, true for existing companies.

On the other hand we still don’t know which new companies will be created that couldn’t be be created before due to unfavorable economics.

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

#248

Post by lukan »

stdbrouw wrote: post #229
funki wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You can easily avoid paying VAT if you know how to" Interesting. Would you care to enlighten us on a legal way to do this ?

You don't have to pay VAT on things you fix for yourself, because you don't pay yourself at all. This is in fact a kind of (legal) tax avoidance, but not (illegal) tax evasion. Given the cost of housing, being able to build your own house or even just doing small fixes here and there, leads to a big increase in perceived income. The tradies I know can afford whatever kind of car they want, whatever kind of holiday ex…

Context was getting income. You don't get income, by avoiding paying more. So it is about black market jobs. Works until something happens. Disputes, accidents, .. you cannot go to the police or courts to demand money from an inoffical job.

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

#249

Post by rwyinuse »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #145

I've been seeing a lot of ads on buses in the area (Copenhagen, Denmark) which suggest trade schools because AI won't be taking your job.

Meanwhile in Finland it's still official government policy to get at least 50% of the population to have higher education, even though academic unemployment is already at all time high.

It feels like nobody in the government is even trying to prepare for the massive changes in job market.

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

#250

Post by lb1lf »

edwcross wrote: post #225
anthuswilliams wrote: post #135

Summary of article: in an uncertain job market, some young people are going into blue collar trades. Others are starting startups. Others are powering through. Journalist says some words about "AI" being the cause of all this uncertainty.

Not sure how it works in the US, but in some parts of Europe, blue collar trades are currently much better, for several reasons: - Price of housing and associated maintenance keeps rising, and so do small jobs like fixing plumbing, gardening, etc; - You can easily avoid paying VAT if you know how to, so that's a 20% increase, or even more, if you can benefit from social services (e.g. since you don't earn a lot, you…

Time for a classic, Soviet-era joke:

A Soviet engineer needs some plumbing done in his apartment, and calls for a plumber. The plumber arrives, does his thing, and hands over the bill. The engineer is shocked. -'What, this is like a quarter of what I make in a month - for half an hour's work???'

Plumber shrugs. -'Well, why don't you come join us? Easy work, well paid, no responsibility - just remember to keep mum about your degree, as we're not supposed to hire academics.'

Our engineer contemplates this for a while, applies for a job as a plumber - and gets it.

All is well, good money, no responsibilites - until management requires that they take evening school classes to gain new skills and thus better build socialism. So, grudgingly, our engineer enrolls in a math class and, upon arriving, finds that the teacher wants to establish what the plumbers already know.

-'You over there - could you please come to the blackboard and show us the formula for the area of a circle?' he asks our engineer.

Standing at the blackboard, he suddenly realizes he can't for the life of him remember the formula; while a bit rusty, he soon figures out how to reason it out - furiously writing out integrals on the blackboard, only to find the area of a circle is -(pi)*r^2.

Minus? How did a negative enter into it, he thinks, going over his calculations once again. No, still gets the same result. Sweat building, he turns away from the blackboard for a moment, turning to the other plumbers watching.

As in one voice, they all whisper -'Comrade, you must switch the limits to the integral!'

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