Talk to anyone about AI, from your plumber to your financial planner, to your local AI venture capitalist, and one of the common emotions underlying all of the talk is fear. This fear is sometimes stated and often never mentioned at all: people are afraid of AI making them irrelevant. We’re worried about AI coming for our jobs. We’re worried because we don’t know what this new technology will bring and how it will change things. We’re worried about the unknown.
So, let’s just be real about the fear.
People are afraid. There. We said it.
So, let’s talk about it, shall we?
We like to think about this question from a few different angles because it’s a complex question, and with all the emotion built up around it, we know it’s a complicated topic.
Demographic Shifts
One thing we know is that younger populations are declining in general throughout the United States. The global TFR has more than halved over the past 70 years, from around five children for each female in 1950 to 2.2 children in 2021. By 2025, we’ll start to see declining college enrollments as a result of this demographic shift. In this case, there are simply going to be less students filling the spots in colleges.
We like to think about how this will impact our world in five, ten, twenty years and beyond. This means that while AI is picking up more and more tasks within modern society, there are going to be less and less educated graduates around to fill in the technical spots.
A Shift
Just like the industrial revolution changed the way agrarian societies operated, moving many into industrial roles, any big change in how work gets done will change what our roles may look like. A new set of skills will be needed to drive AI technology forward and more than ever, we need smart, capable thinkers who are willing to dive in.
Since AI is already streamlining so many mundane tasks, it’s really opening the door to deeper thinking, problem-solving, and creativity.
New Problems to Solve
We always like to focus on solving problems with the companies we’re investing in. We get excited when we meet a startup who is solving annoyances our cultures have simply put up with for centuries. AI is opening doors to solve so many problems, making our lives easier. These industries still need highly skilled experts (and lay people) but because of the problems that are being solved today, their jobs are more enjoyable, more scalable, and more efficient.
Is AI coming for your job? It’s coming for parts of all of our jobs. But, there’s still too much opportunity to leverage AI to make yourself irreplaceable in your team and your industry to be worried about AI taking your entire career away. We like to think about these opportunities and love working with founders who are doing the same!