A Nobel Prize-winning labor market economist has warned young people against majoring in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), claiming that “empathetic” and creative abilities will thrive in a society controlled by artificial intelligence.
According to Christopher Pissarides, an economics professor at the London School of Economics, workers in specific IT positions risk sowing their “own seeds of self-destruction” by developing AI that will eventually acquire the same jobs.
While Pissarides is optimistic about AI’s overall effect on the labor market, he expressed concern for people studying STEM topics in the hopes of capitalizing on technological breakthroughs. Despite the current rapid surge in demand for STEM abilities, he believes that industries needing more conventional in-person skills, such as hospitality and healthcare, will continue to dominate the labor market.
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“The skills that are needed now — to collect the data, collate it, develop it, and use it to develop the next phase of AI or, more to the point, make AI more applicable for jobs — will make the skills that are needed now obsolete because it will be doing the job,” he said in a telephone interview. “Despite the fact that you see growth, they’re still not as numerous as might be required to have jobs for all those graduates coming out with STEM because that’s what they want to do.”
He goes on to say, “This demand for these new IT skills, they contain their own seeds of self-destruction.”
STEM topics, like computer science, have grown in popularity lately as students strive to become more employable in the future. The rapid emergence of AI may change the skills required for workers by making some positions and duties obsolete.
However, managerial, creative, and emotional skills, such as communications, customer service, and healthcare, will likely remain in high demand in the long run because “they are less replaceable by technology, particularly AI.”
“When you say the majority of jobs will be jobs that will involve personal care, communication, good social relationships, people might say, ‘Oh, God, is that what we have to look forward to in the future?'” Pissarides said in an interview. “We shouldn’t look down on these jobs. They’re better than the positions that high school graduates used to have.”
