You’ve heard the fears and the rumors. You’ve probably wondered a little about it yourself, even if you talk a big game to everyone else. Most people have wondered with the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI), where their job will be in the next five to ten years. Every developer we have ever worked with always had a latent fear that once the project was completed, they’d be out of a job.
So, where are all of the jobs going now that AI has become so dominant in our world? What will the impact be on our jobs? How should we be responding now?
Will the Jobs Disappear?
Most developers have a fear that they will design themselves out of a job because of the AI they’ve helped build. In reality, no one ever lost their job at the end of the project. There is always more work to be done, but it’s still hard to envision what’s next when you’re in the thick of the project. What we’re facing now is simply less clarity on what is next.
Here’s what we do know:
Opportunity
The rise of AI has become an exponential curve upwards toward adoption in everyday life. At every turn, you find a new solution utilizing AI and every day there seem to be new ideas of how to incorporate AI into the mix. This means more opportunities to build out these solutions. Our own mix of companies in our portfolio range from skincare to manufacturing, to finance, research, and more. The solutions our companies are solving are wildly different from each other, but they all have opportunities to leverage data and AI in deeper, meaningful ways.
Greater Challenges
The next big opportunity with AI ultimately means deeper, more challenging problems. We had a recent conversation with someone who frankly said: “we don’t have enough people to work on our hardest problems.” That is the most exciting opportunity for AI. By freeing people from repetitive, low value tasks or avoiding firefighting with preemptive maintenance or speeding up existing work, we’ll have more time to focus on the hard problems.
Leverage Deeper
Instead of focusing your time and attention on mundane tasks, your career can take a deeper turn. If AI is at risk of disrupting your career, you may have an opportunity to embrace AI and instead go deeper in your skillset and expertise. Leverage AI to your advantage and become the expert in your industry. AI still requires human interaction, and it’s the ones who understand it the best who can be the go-to source to refine and design future technologies.
So, is AI gunning for some jobs? Yes, we know technology has already eliminated certain jobs. We’ve seen it in recent years in industries like robotics and manufacturing. What we’ve also seen is a demand in other areas of the workforce. New challenges arise, but new opportunities rise up as well. AI is already disrupting how we’re solving problems today and it’s exciting to see how we leverage it for tomorrow.