Three AI-Proof Jobs

Not everyone will be replaced...

Artificial Intelligence is un-employing millions. When fully-fledged AI-enabled robots start takin it to the streets, billions of humans will join the ranks of the unemployed. Indeed, look for “humans need not apply” signs on every imaginable job board. But don’t worry…

Homo sapiens made it this far by interbreeding with our competitors: Neanderthals, Cro-Magnons, Denisovans and any other primate species that couldn’t outrun us. Modern man will avoid extinction in much the same way: by adding Artificial Intelligence to our organic intelligence.

If the process of turning our species into androids through AI enhancement will be anything like my vasectomy, it won’t be nearly as much fun as a couple of bipeds doing the horizontal mambo. Other than driving a Ferrari, what is? While we wait for the man-machine interface to manifest, here are three jobs that will survive AI’s first wave.

Debate coach

AI is the end of education as we know it. Why would a child waste a single brain cell writing an answer to a question – any question – when AI can do it for them in seconds? AI detectors? LOL. If only the electronic battle between speeders’ detectors and jammers and cops’ radar guns and lasers was settled so easily in the “cheater’s” favor.

Educators could make students write all their papers and exams under direct supervision. Good luck with that. What kid can write longhand these days? They think cursive is how Boomers describes rappers.

Supervised or not, if students are banging away on a keyboard, AI is there – until Union releases AI-proof software. Meanwhile and alongside that, there’s only possible solution: oral exams.

Back to the future! Until the 1700’s, when books, paper and pens became cheap and cheerful, students proved their intellectual prowess by answering questions out loud. What was true for law students in 1973 and doctoral candidates today will be true for grade school and up in the years to come.

Have you heard how many times an average “student” uses the word “like”? Have you tried to have a rational debate with a liberal (sorry, but there it is)? Students will need someone to teach them how to organize their thoughts and convey them orally without hesitation, deviation or repetition. That could be you!

If you’re thinking debate coach will be a low-paying job, I’ve got two words for you: Lori Loughlin. The college cheating scandal proved that parents will pay tens of thousands of dollars to get their children into the best schools. That ain’t gonna change (elite gotta elite). A top-notch debate coach will be worth big bucks.

Sex worker

I’ve written about erotic role play AI chatbots and AI sex robots. Yes, but… a million years of human evolution says humans will continue to want to fuck humans. I reckon the rise of AI-enabled sex will make flesh-and-blood ugly bumping more special. Precious. Desirable. Profitable.

Anyone who sings love for sale will have plenty of customers well into AI’s Brave New World. Come to think of it (so to speak), anyone peddling actual love will also have no problem finding work amongst our robot overlords. Sex and spirituality as growth industries in the world of AI. Weird eh?

Singer/Actor

Someday, AI robots and/or androids will play Beethoven’s Fifth without missing a note. Machines that look like you and me will perform Our Town with enough emotion to make you cry. The day when machines replace human performing artists is still a long way off.

Even when it arrives, people will prefer watching people perform. The more machines invade our life – through AI writing, music and movies – the more we’ll value watching “real” artists exploring what it means to be human. Live and in-person. The market for live performance will increase, not decrease.

The Future Of Work in the Age of AI

Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone was an astounding, unprecedented invention that changed the world. But how it changed the world was impossible to predict. Mr. Bell knew it would increase efficiency in the transportation and finance industries, but I don’t think he envisioned Uber or portable pornography.

The people who will make bank on Artificial Intelligence: entrepreneurs who find ways to combine AI with existing technology to create something new. Telephone + radio signals + mass produced automobiles + GPS = Uber. What our AI devices and services look like ten years hence is anyone’s guess.

If we accept the principle that energy is never lost – it only changes form – we also have to accept the idea that ingenious, profit-seeking pre- and post-android humans will use AI in new and entirely unpredictable ways, creating new types of work. Whether that graft is better or worse that current employment options remains to be seen. Hoy-Hoy!