[seanhunter]

   > "you basically just need to know a lot of rules..."

This comment commits one of the most common fallacies that I see really often in technical people, which is to assume that any subject you don't know anything about must be really simple.

I have no idea where this comment comes from, but my father was a chemical engineer and his father was mechanical engineer. A family friend is a structural engineer. I don't have a perspective about AI replacing people's jobs in general that is any more valuable than anyone elses, but I can say with a great deal of confidence that in those three engineering disciplines specifically literally none of any of their jobs are about knowing a bunch of rules and best practices.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that just because you don't know what someone does, that their job is easy and/or unnecessary or you could pick it up quickly. It may or may not be true but assuming it to be the case is unlikely to take you anywhere good.

[hattmall]

It's not simple at all, that's a huge reduction to the underlying premise. The complexity is the reason that AI is a threat. That complexity revolves around a tremendous amount of data and how that data interacts. The very nature of the field makes it non-experimental but ripe for advanced automation based on machine learning. The science of engineering from a practical standpoint, where most demand for employees comes from, is very much algorithmic.

[namaria]

> The science of engineering from a practical standpoint, where most demand for employees comes from, is very much algorithmic.

You should read up on Göedel's and Turing's work on the limits of formal systems and computability.

You are basically presuming that P=NP.