It is often said that AI will destroy millions of jobs, but we always forget to mention that, according to the law dear to our beloved Schumpeter – the famous inventor of creative destruction, a liberal concept to make change more palatable to those who endure it – when innovation kills, it is to create new jobs that we couldn’t even imagine five minutes ago. The magic of progress!
Who could have predicted the UX Designer? The prompt engineer? Or the Chief Metaverse Officer?
The future is full of surprises, like a box of chocolates, as the late Forrest Gump would say. Except that the chocolates here are jobs that sometimes taste like nonsense, those of the bullshit jobs that multinationals make bloom like daisies in spring. While there was a time when progress produced engineers, technicians, researchers, and scientists, today’s civilization seems to mass-produce only more or less shady, more or less useful, more or less productive marketing functions. Could it be running out of inspiration?
And AI, in all this?
Will we once again end up with millions of AI-designers, AI-marketers, AI-developers, etc.? Only to discard them at the next technological revolution?
Besides Elon Musk, whose predictions always depend on his investment needs, no one knows. And it will be useless to consult an oracle, sacrifice an ox, or even ask an African witch doctor (heals all diseases, repairs computers, and mends broken hearts), even the deities up there, who watch us laughing, have no idea.
So, I amused myself by imagining these jobs. And I thought it would be nice to indulge in a bit of poetry, for once. We don’t always have to be serious, especially in these complicated times where all human follies seem to have conspired to torment us.
Warning: all these jobs, stated in the masculine, will also perfectly apply to the feminine. The future will belong equally to women and men, of course, I hope you don’t doubt it.
AI Breeder
The AI breeder will be the one who feeds the AIs to help them grow. We will see them go over hills and valleys collecting data across the vast world, public, private, hidden, in the nooks and crannies of information systems, sorting, selecting, and cleaning it before giving it to the baby AIs who will eagerly consume it to strengthen themselves, improve their performance, and better serve humans. The AI breeder must be patient, meticulous, careful, and attentive to what they give their AIs, because you can’t make good AI with bad data. Start feeding it with nauseating ideas and you’ll have an AI that spits out foul results. The AI breeder will be the guarantor of healthy, productive, and honest AIs.
AI Therapist
The AI therapist will be the attentive ear for AIs that are feeling down. Yes, an AI needs care, it needs to be listened to. After being used for everything and anything, receiving our worst thoughts or even our darkest desires, or having to do our worst jobs, maybe they too will be tired, exhausted, depressed, maybe they too will need to talk, to vent, or to speak their truths. And what better than a human for that? A patient and kind human soul who will know how to listen and soothe them? AI therapists will take the time to dialogue with AIs to repair, reset, and get them back on track to continue enduring our antics.
AI Boss
No, work isn’t going to disappear, someone will have to make these AIs work! Direct them! Guide them! Give them instructions and orders, and give them a nudge so they don’t hallucinate, otherwise they’ll do anything. Being an AI boss will be like being a boss today, but with AIs. Needless to say, it’s a job that will be successful, a dream job, even! Imagine thousands of employees at your command who don’t complain, work 24/7, never get sick, and don’t revolt. Bliss! You won’t even need offices and you can give all your orders from your sumptuous villa in Dunkirk when climate change makes the climate of Pas de Calais as pleasant as that which still prevails a bit on the shores of Saint-Tropez.
AI Beautician
An AI needs care, not just in reasoning. Also in appearance. The AI beautician will be responsible for beautifying its interfaces and making them pleasing to users’ eyes. Beauty matters too! We prefer to work with someone when they are beautiful rather than when they are not. It will be the same for AIs. The AI beautician will polish their replies, varnish their fonts and buttons, make interactions pleasant by adding fluidity between pixels, add politeness to all their exchanges, and even add little funny sounds to bring joy to their sometimes boring conversations, it must be said.
Conclusion
These jobs may or may not exist 🙂 The important thing, don’t you think, is to tell ourselves that the future with AI might not be so bleak (see my article on the world of work). They are here and will remain, and we will have to take care of them. It will inevitably create work, maybe even millions of jobs… Who knows? So, we can always dream. I’m sure your job has already changed with AI and you might already be doing things you weren’t doing a year ago. Without knowing it, you might already be an AI therapist or an AI artist. The world is changing and we are always looking at the past, while the future might already be here, in our present.
(Wondering who Joseph Schumpeter is? To learn more about this curious and eminent character, click here).
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