AI versus first jobbers: Here are six tips for bright young students as AI threatens entry-level jobs
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Anthropic.ai founder Dario Amodei has set the cat among the pigeons by predicting that AI could eliminate half of all entry-level, white-collar jobs within five years. Aneesh Raman, a senior leader in LinkedIn, sees 'the bottom rung of the job ladder breaking', with entry-level coding, para-legal and consulting analyst jobs under threat of being 'replaced with AI'.Molly Kinder of Brookings says, 'These tools are so good that I no longer need marketing analysts, finance analysts and research assistants.'Even in my tiny company, we have 'replaced' a couple of junior researchers with deep research AI agents from OpenAI and Perplexity.This phenomenon of entrylevel jobs being under AI threat is not only anecdotal. Raman sees hard evidence of this on LinkedIn, with 63% of VPs and above agreeing that AI might eventually take on some of the entry-level roles and tasks. The latest US job data reveals that the unemployment rate for college grads has risen by 30%, compared with about 18% for all workers.Layoffs by big tech and consulting firms support this assertion. PwC recently laid off 1,500 US employees, most of them recent hires. Microsoft got rid of about 3% of its workforce, most of them software engineers and project managers. A now-famous memo by the Spotify CEO froze all hiring, insisting that employees must first prove that AI can't do that job before they hire a human being.Technology has always impacted jobs, destroying many old ones, but also creating new, unexpected ones. The IT wave put old-school clerks and stenographers to pasture, but created millions of software developers and search engine marketers. Manufacturing went through a similar transition.AI, however, is different in the sense that it is a cognitive technology—one of the brain, rather than of the hand. So, it squarely takes aim at the knowledge worker and the creative artist.What seems different with AI is how it is impacting first jobbers and entry-level workers. This is dangerous, as it is in the formative years that youngsters learn skills and gain experience.Writing basic code and debugging are how they rise to become great software engineers; junior paralegals and associates draft clauses and contracts that prepares them for partner-level tasks; and retail and customer service agents learn the basics before they can rise up the hierarchy. These are, coincidentally, the tasks that AI can do best. Deep Research can do the job of researchers; vibe coding with Cursor AI of entry-level software; while Harvey AI and NotebookLM draft excellent contracts.Thus, curiously, AI seems to be favouring the older people—with their human qualities of judgement, experience, institutional memory and collaboration, sharpened over years. It is in these human skills that young people need to be groomed. But if entry jobs go away, it will create a massive unemployment and educational crisis, and choke the pipeline of young people who can replace the seniors.With our obsession for software and STEM, it was not only computer or software engineering graduates who joined tech firms as software engineers. Legions of mechanical, electronics and even civil engineers did the same. There is a whole world to build out there outside of software. Manufacturing firms desperately need engineers to run their machines, there are bridges to be built, roads to be repaired and data centres to be run. For instance, Google recently announced a $10 million grant, among other things, to train electricians for the power plant and data centre boom that AI has sowed. This huge shortage means electrical engineers in data centre clusters in the US are earning significantly more than software engineers do. Simply put, say hello to the revolutionary idea that mechanical engineers do mechanical engineering.The definition of literacy has changed. It was about reading, writing and arithmetic; now it is beyond that to working naturally with AI tools and agents. Young people, including those I teach at Ashoka and other universities, are fast adapting to be AI literate and use AI tools in everything they do, to get a leg up in their job search. At KPMG, recent graduates are reportedly leveraging AI tools and handling tax jobs that used to be done by employees with three-plus years' experience. Big legal firms are encouraging early-career lawyers to work on complex contracts that once senior people did.Humans will have to rediscover humanities with subjects of logic, grammar, ethics, philosophy and literature to keep our competitive advantage. With AI agents increasingly handling the technical 'how-to' of tasks, the human edge will lie in the 'why' and the 'what next'. The 'humble' subjects of humanities like language, philosophy, grammar and the arts are the ones that provide us critical frameworks for understanding context, ethics, human motivation, creativity and critical judgment —skills that are inherently difficult for AI to replicate meaningfully. As answers become commoditised, questions or prompts become important, and increasingly employers will prefer graduates with a mix of humanities and technical skills.Entrepreneurs and SMEs build economies, not large monolithic organisations. More and more first jobbers will choose to become entrepreneurs. The New York Times writes about how at Stanford University, fewer grads are considering tech and finance careers, and more of them are plunging into starting companies — 'on the theory that if humans are about to lose their labor advantages to powerful AI systems, they had better hurry and do something big'.There is no rule that people must do only one job at a time. As AI rolls in, multiple skills will become much more important. Be a software engineer and a chef; qualify as a designer and run a pet foster home; build websites as well as toys for children. Think of your career not as a linear progression in a single industry, but a portfolio you are juggling.Much before this era, young people entered jobs as apprentices. They would pay a master blacksmith or surgeon to teach them their craft, before setting up a practice of their own. The modern corporate organisation reversed that trend; young people were paid to learn during their initial years. As AI replaces basic skills and reinvents work, there could be a reversal. There could be a future where humans would invest to do our first job, before we claim the right to earn.
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