Lots of handwringing today about Buzzfeed announcing that it will be using AI to write content from human prompts. Loads of journalists saying that this is wrong and they hope it fails.
1) This isn't going to fail. Not in the long run. In the same way that AI will *eventually* put long-haul truckers and cabbies out of business, AI will *eventually* put commodity journalists out of business. And a hundred other careers.
1.5) I have a teenage son who officially dropped out of high school, TODAY, in order to pursue a career in music. (Don't worry, he's already working on his GED). I'm also coaching a client who is working on algorithmically generated music. It's a complex world.
2) I sympathize with everyone who is suddenly feeling their lives put at existential risk. How will I support myself, or my family? What career can I have moving forward? These are truly scary questions and it's human nature to lash out at the thing that's putting you at risk.
2.5) The answer to the above question, despite the last decade of guidance, is probably not "learn to code". AI is coming for that industry as well (see GitHub Copilot).
3) Now is the time to be thinking beyond any individual industry and start working on a world and economic strategy predicated on the idea that many citizens may never have the opportunity for a meaningful job, or a job at all.
We are rapidly moving towards a world where AI will take over information processing and (eventually) robots will do a lot of repetitive tasks. Instead of thinking about writers or coders, we need to start to re-envision how we'll support a world of people with a ton of free time.
Capitalism's insatiable appetite for efficiency will eventually win out. What are we going to do then?
3.5) More than ever, a career in the trades looks pretty good. That's what I've suggested to my son, along with playing a lot of guitar.