How AI Is Taking “Future-Proof” Jobs | Hany Farid
About The Episode
Is AI coming for your job? AI Expert Hany Farid breaks down how AI is taking jobs once considered “future-proof” and shares his advice to prepare young people for the future.
For more, check out the extended interview with Hany Farid.
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Hakeem Oluseyi: My son, he's 20, he's a senior in college this fall. Guess what his major is... computer science.
Hany Farid: Yeah, and he's struggling. Everybody is. I can tell you, I'm at UC Berkeley, one of the top, let's say, five CS programs in the world. Our students typically had five internship offers throughout their first four years of college. They would graduate with exceedingly high salaries, multiple offers, they had to run the place. That is not happening today. They're happy to get one job offer, so something is happening in the industry. I think it's a confluence of many things. I think AI is part of it, I think there's a thinning of the ranks that's happening part of it, but something is brewing. For people like your son, by the way, who four years ago were promised, "Go study computer science, it's going to be a great career. It is future-proof," that changed in four years. That is astonishing. I get this question by the way from students all the time is, "How do I prepare for this?"
Hakeem Oluseyi: Yeah, exactly.
Hany Farid: Honestly, I'm sort of at a loss. My best advice, and I don't know if it's good advice, by the way, this is what I used to tell people, "You want a broad education. You should know about physics and language and history and philosophy, but then you have to go deep, deep, deep, deep into one thing, become really, really good at one thing." Now, I think I'm telling people, "Be good at a lot of different things because we don't know what the future holds."
Hakeem Oluseyi: And you need options.
Hany Farid: And you need options.