The main question about different skills is: Will they be replaced by AI? Because nothing is worse than spending 10 years learning a skill that will be replaced in 99% of use cases. For example, translators. Learning a foreign language is good, but building a career as a translator is something I wouldn’t do.
Throughout human history, we’ve seen many professions replaced by the industrial revolution. One of my favorites is the
knocker-upper—someone who would wake people up in the morning by tapping on their windows with a long stick or a similar tool. With the mass production of alarm clocks, this profession disappeared.
But at the same time, some professions evolved. For example,
carriage drivers became
Uber drivers. In my essay about
marketing and startups in ancient Rome, I talked about
tabellarii—an early-stage food delivery startup.
Some professions evolve, some don’t change (e.g., waiters), and some disappear entirely.
That’s why we need to figure out which types of jobs AI will have the biggest impact on.
Spoiler: I don’t know.
Even the people who are creating AI don’t know. It’s like the person who invented the
internal combustion engine didn’t know it would replace knocker-uppers.
But we can try to figure out who will be replaced first.
Okay, let’s think: In what area is AI performing the best? For me, it’s only in the digital space.
Ironically, AI has had the greatest impact on the web development industry. The biggest venture capital investments are in AI tools for web developers. But I don’t believe AI will replace developers. I’d say that
people who don’t use AI will be replaced by those who do.The second area is the content creation industry, especially in text. Translators and copywriters have taken the biggest hit from AI. For example, before AI, creating this kind of essay was very hard for me.
English is not my native language, and I was always paying for translators who knew English but were also not native speakers. Every time a native speaker read the text, they could feel it wasn’t right.
So, the quality was worse. The price for creating one piece of content was expensive.
Now, I can do it for free, without any help, and very quickly.
The same goes for web developers. I remember when creating a website was rocket science. After 2015, with the no-code era, everyone could build a website by dragging and dropping different blocks. Today, you just prompt, "Create a website for my marketing agency." It still doesn’t work perfectly, but it's just a matter of time.
It sounds like AI will replace creators and developers, but not everything is so clear.
As Luc Besson said, “AI
can’t create
Léon, but it can easily create
Léon 2.”
AI can replace my translator, but it will not replace the person who translates agreements about nukes. That will always be a human (for the next 50-100 years).
The more complicated the task, the more creative it is, and the more responsibility it carries, the less impact AI will have.
In my essay
The End of Following, I touched on the history of tech development. New technology allows more people to do the stuff; it’s not replacing them.
The same happens with writing and filmmaking.
200 years ago, most people couldn’t read and write, but today it’s the standard of education.
100 years ago, making a video was a privilege for the very rich. Today, my parents can easily record a video.
Every era gives birth to its
"J.K. Rowling" and
"Christopher Nolan".
What I want to say is that AI will replace mediocre specialists, like a content manager who writes articles for a cooking blog. But at the same time, there will be a lot of opportunities for the next Martha Stewart, who will have their own cooking blog or show and will make millions.