Coming of age with AI

I have been speaking to large groups of students lately, and I was struck by how similar their situations are to what I once faced.

Of course, everything seems different. I graduated from college without knowing what a computer is. In the early 90s Calcutta, there were only a few career options, and most of them were connected to the government somehow. However, because we didn't see much else, we could predict our futures with confidence: If someone met me then, I told the students, I could have told them what I would do next, where I would live and perhaps whom I would marry.

But something happened just then, and within two years, none of those came to pass. Instead, the Indian economy started changing; computers and the internet emerged —new industries and jobs emerged. Implausibly, I was not an Engineer and had no computer training until after I left college—I had a career in IT before I found one in education.

In this, I find similarities with the students, who are coming of age at a similarly disruptive moment, with the work landscape being transformed by AI.

I told them about Robert Reich's The Work of the Nations (1991) and the observation that Symbolic Analysts would rise. This shift shaped my career —educating professionals for the transformation of the workplace—and it was always interesting. It took me to different places worldwide, and I developed a sense of vocation as I went along. From these serendipities, I told the students they might need to think beyond the obvious careers and embrace a bit of going with the flow.

A useful rubric of what will happen may be found in Jamie Marisotis' Human Work in the Age of Smart Machines (2021), where he discusses four kinds of professionals: Helpers, Bridgers, Integrators, and Creators. The Helpers are like Reich's 'In-person service workers', the counsellors, nurses, coaches and guides. The Bridgers interface between humans and technology, the likes of prompt engineers and the new programmers with greater human understanding, which most of my audience is destined to become. Integrators would integrate different disciplines, such as behavioural scientists, who would create new virtual worlds. The creators would be augmented by technology and AI and may enjoy a new golden age.

There is a widespread fear of AI on campuses right now. Suddenly, the established formula, an engineering education leading to a STEM job, has been upended. In this uncertainty is familiarity: I came of age at the cusp of the IT revolution! But the new professions are emerging right before us, provided we can let go of the old aspirations and embrace new ones.