Blue collar jobs gain popularity while AI threatens office work

Geoffrey Hinton’s message On a recent podcast on artificial intelligence Was simple: “train to be a plumber”.

Hinton, a computer scientist of the Nobel Prize, often called “the sponsor of the AI”, said in June what people have said for years now: jobs that include manual work and expertise are the least vulnerable to modern technology than certain other career paths, many of which have generally been considered more respected and more lucrative.

“I think plumbers are less at risk,” said Hinton. “Someone like a legal assistant, a parajurist, he will not be necessary for a very long time.”

Even with the spectacular rise of AI and the evolution of advanced robotics, technology and business people praise skilled trades as offering long -term employment for workers who can do what computers cannot.

Last month, Microsoft revealed A list of jobs that could be threatened as the advances.

The professions at the top of the list were interpreters, historians, customer service and representatives of sales and writers. Certain roles considered safe included manual jobs such as roofers and rail operators, workers and painters for the elimination of dangerous materials. In the health care industry, phlebotomists and nursing assistants were also considered safe.

As AI advances, many manual work jobs are long -term.

“Automation is a low threat to these jobs, because it involves a manual installation person, and many of those who are getting closer to retirement,” said Tony Spagnololi, director of tests and education for the excellence of the North American technician, the country’s largest non-profit organization for heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration technicians. “The AI cannot replace the documents or make improvisation decisions.”

The Bureau of Labor Statistics agrees. IT projects that openings for jobs in a variety of professions will develop in the coming years – particularly notable, because entry -level job offers for university graduates stagnate.

There is no shortage of media threw around the AI that arrives for jobs, and although the American labor market has started to spray, The material evidence of job loss linked to AI are rare. Even software engineers, considered to be at particular at risk thanks to the capacity of AI to generate computer code, seem relatively unscathed.

But for many, it is only a matter of time before the shortages of employment linked to AI begin to strike hard.

“Innovation linked to artificial intelligence (AI) could move 6 to 7% of the American workforce if AI is widely adopted,” said Goldman Sachs In a blog article published WednesdayWhile also noting that the impact could be “transient” as people find other jobs.

Whether or not IA ends up taking a lot of jobs, the idea was sufficient to push some people to reconsider their future. The online CV manufacturer last month released A investigation Of more than 1,400 adults of generation Z to understand how economic pressures, increased education costs and concerns concerning AI facing their career paths.

Among the main conclusions were 42% of those questioned, many of whom are colleges graduates, were already working or pursuing a blue collar or a qualified commercial job. Their main motivations included avoiding student debt and reducing the risk of being replaced by AI.

For the Zers generation without a diploma, the work in blue collar offered a way to financial stability without the burden of student loans; And men of generation Z, whatever the level of education, were more likely than women to choose careers in blue colors.

“More graduates of the Gen Z College turn to careers and for a good reason”, the chief career advisor of the recovery manufacturer, Stacie Haller, written in the investigation. “Many are concerned about replacing the traditional roles of white collars, while commercial jobs offer practical work that is difficult to automate.

But AI could also come for these jobs. Progress in mechanical automation – of humanoid machines has Robots specific to the task – Combined with AI consists of humans.

“Robotics really arrive,” said Andrew Reece, AI chief scientist at Betterup, an online platform that partly uses AI tools to support professional development. “It will start to replace the entry level work, such as driving trucks and moving equipment, but it can take time to start determining the complex work.”

But there is a big gap between robotics improvements and a technology that can replace a human in the real world. Most AI are always trained mainly on text data, which gives it little or no understanding of the real world. And the robots themselves still have a long way to go.

“It is a very wide false idea that we are about to have humanoid robots, workers. In my mind, it’s a myth, “said Ken Goldberg, president of the robot Learning Foundation at the University of California in Berkeley. “Progress is slowly slowing down.”

And there is a lot of room so that business people work alongside AI and robotics, leaving the most sensitive and difficult work for people who have perfected their skills for years.

The automotive industry is based on new technologies to diagnose problems with cars, but it does not expect robots to replace mechanics.

“This could possibly help diagnose a problem, but there will always be a need to test and replace automotive parts,” said Matt Shepanek, vice-president of identification tests at the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence.

“You will always need someone to perform physical action.”