Virtual & Vocational — The Much-needed Future of post-AI Work Education

This article was originally posted on Medium by Piotr Baczyński - CEO of Immersion.

The sudden rise of generative AI is making a ton of waves. And as we experience the transformation it brings, some might become more akin to a tsunami.

Some say it is the coming of a new and glorious age, where AI will help save the world. On the gloomier side of the fence, doomsayers predict the absolute end of everything and everyone.

I don’t subscribe to this point of view, but at the same time, let’s not pretend that things aren’t going to change. Cause they are, and there’s no coming back.

One of the first casualties will be the white-collar workforce, and that could end disastrously. Unless… we figure out an efficient way to train people to have easy access to AI-proofed professions.

Diabolus ex Machina

Work-wise, the fear of the machine feels justified. In the past, many of our ancestors lost their occupations due to the inevitable changes brought about by technology. And while kids nowadays can’t decipher how a VHS tape worked, we might not recount the existence of such professions as Lamplighter, Aircraft Listeners, or Knocker-Ups.

Just like the esteemed VHS tape, they were replaced with ubiquitous technology, destined to be forgotten shortly after the last “20 jobs you won’t believe existed” article is written and read.

With the rapid advancements in generative artificial intelligence, something similar is about to happen now, but this time, technology comes for white-collar jobs. And it’s not the machine’s fault but a consequence of a hole we dug ourselves into. Allow me to elaborate.

Diplomas for nothing, loans for free

The downfall of white-collar jobs is a long time in the making.

Tech-wise, the signs were there from the late 80’s. Scientists led by Hans Moravec made an interesting observation in AI and robotics. They pointed out that reasoning would be the easiest thing for machines to emulate, contrary to popular belief. The things we learn growing up and utilize subconsciously in our day-to-day lives — sensorimotor and perception skills — will present a much more complex task.

In simpler terms, while AI can easily take away your documents and spreadsheets, it will need a lot more time to fix your plumbing.

And just like the machines of old that changed the factory floors forever came for the livelihood of blue-collar workers, once we harnessed our first widely available and on-demand artificial intelligence, a similar shift is coming in white-collar work.

Often treated as the more prestigious form of employment, requiring college-level education (and the price tag that comes with it), it’s been gradually losing its appeal for years. And now, experts estimate that it will get even worse. According to Goldman Sachs’ report, “generative AI could expose the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs to automation”.

That’s a lot of jobs for a lot of people.

People who spent long years and absurd amounts of money to get there in the first place.

And while I won’t pretend that all is well, after all, losing the primary source of income is among the biggest fears of modern-day society, there are ways to alleviate this.

AI-proofed

In another world, but on the same planet, the blue-collar work is ascending. The demand is steadily rising, with many job openings available, as well as an increase in salaries. And most of them are AI-proofed — requiring practical skills and hands-on expertise, often requiring to operate in unpredictable and ever-changing work environments.

Furthermore, since it requires a particular set of skills, the companies are formulating elaborate hiring strategies to get through and reach suitable candidates. But first and foremost, the skillset must be there, which will require an effective and cost-efficient bridging of the education-to-workforce gap.

We need an efficient system to train more workforce for blue-collar jobs. And through some cruel cosmic irony, AI will be one of the main platforms to help with that.

Virtual education, real skills

There is an emerging trend in training that gets hotter every year. It’s Virtual Reality. It offers an unrivaled freedom to perform complex tasks and learn them through practice manually.

Another huge advantage of virtual reality training is the possibility of realistic learning in environments that are difficult to access and dangerous for trainees, such as workshops, factories, or construction sites. VR allows for replaying complex scenarios and can visualize accidents and the consequences of mistakes.

It also allows what is crucial for scalable education, where an expert on a subject can teach remotely to dozens or hundreds of students worldwide. This is particularly important because experts in these professions are rare and often strapped for time and availability.

Furthermore, the costs of transporting hundreds of students to a place where an expert specialized in some rare machinery is available are enormous; the costs of remote training are incomparably lower.

Until recently, the main barrier to the spread of this type of training was, on the one hand, the cost of VR equipment and, on the other, the cost of their creation. VR equipment has become over 90% cheaper in the last few years, and in the field of creating VR training, there has been a real revolution thanks to the aforementioned generative AI.

AI taketh and AI giveth back

Artificial intelligence makes many elements that make VR training much easier and faster to create: conversation systems, object creation, or animations. Tasks that required months of work are now accomplished in a matter of days.

It is already possible to quickly equip a virtual avatar with comprehensive knowledge of a subject and combined with a voice generated by artificial intelligence, it can independently conduct complex training, ask the trainee questions, and provide valuable feedback.

Soon, artificial intelligence will also help to create 3D assets quickly, program them, and create interactive training experiences.

In the coming years, there will be a huge demand for training solutions, a kind of virtual vocational schools for a vast population, where people will be able to acquire skills that allow them to find well-paid work and one that is mainly resistant to the shock caused by the expansion of artificial intelligence.

Epilogue

While the initial excitement of being handed access to generative AI dials down, we start unraveling the implications it brings. And while a significant shift is shaping how the work will look for many of us soon, we’re also handed the tools to make it a smoother transition as long as we’re smart about it.

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