[peterbonney]

If you looked at how the average accountant spent their time before the arrival of the digital spreadsheet, you might have predicted that automated calculation would make the profession obsolete. But it didn't.

This time could be different, of course. But I'll need a lot more evidence before I start telling people to base their major life decisions on projected technological change.

That's before we even consider that only a very slim minority of the people who study math (or physics or statistics or biology or literature or...) go on to work in the field of math (or physics or statistics or biology or literature or...). AI could completely take over math research and still have next to impact on the value of the skills one acquires from studying math.

Or if you want to be more fatalistic about it: if AI is going to put everyone out of work then it doesn't really matter what you do now to prepare for it. Might as well follow your interests in the meantime.

[blagie]

It's important to base life decisions on very real technological change. We don't know what the change will be, but it's coming. At the very least, that suggests more diverse skills.

We're all usually (but not always) better off, with more productivity, eventually, but in the meantime, jobs do disappear. Robotics did not fully displace machinists and factory workers, but single-skilled people in Detroit did not do well. The loom, the steam engine... all of them displaced often highly-trained often low-skilled artisans.

[rafaelmn]

If AI reaches this level socioeconomic impact is going to be so immense, that choosing what subject you study will have no impact on your outcome - no matter what it is - so it's a pointless consideration.

[blagie]

That's just about the silliest thing I've read in a long time.

We've had changes before, the most recent one being the rise of computers and then the internet, and before that, manufacturing automation. In all cases, some people were better prepared for change, and some less so.

The general consensus is that diverse skills and foundational skills (e.g. math, communication) best prepare people for transitions, relative to specialized skills (e.g. one technology). In addition, many careers are likely to be less impacted, such as plumbing.

[rafaelmn]

If we reach superhuman AGI the best preparation you can make is weapons, combat training and maybe look to build/join a militia to do a quick takeover while it's still ramping up. Society is built on cooperation outperforming violence - there's 0 chance that holds past real AGI - game theory works very different when we aren't living in an iterated prisoners dilemma.