This guide is for software engineers and CS students. It’s a more measured take rather than the “SWE jobs are done” predictions. A few concepts that came up a lot are 1) bottlenecks, Amdahl's law and Baumol's cost disease: if we automate 90% of a system, the speed of the remaining 10% still limits the speed of the overall system; 2) Jevons paradox: when things have elastic demand and become more efficient we tend to consume more of them and 3) Complementarity: the things that increase in value are those that we need more of when AI gets cheaper, but that AI does a poor job of substituting for. This guide is compiled from questions I ([@chrisbarber](https://x.com/chrisbarber)) asked: <div style="display:flex;flex-wrap:wrap;gap:6px;"> <span style="display:inline-flex;align-items:center;padding:2px 6px;border-radius:999px;border:1px solid #ccc;font-size:12px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/jacobmbuckman_circular.png" width="18" style="margin-right:4px;"> @jacobmbuckman </span> <span style="display:inline-flex;align-items:center;padding:2px 6px;border-radius:999px;border:1px solid #ccc;font-size:12px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/kenneth0stanley_circular.png" width="18" style="margin-right:4px;"> @kenneth0stanley </span> <span style="display:inline-flex;align-items:center;padding:2px 6px;border-radius:999px;border:1px solid #ccc;font-size:12px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/Jsevillamol_circular.png" width="18" style="margin-right:4px;"> @Jsevillamol </span> <span style="display:inline-flex;align-items:center;padding:2px 6px;border-radius:999px;border:1px solid #ccc;font-size:12px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/jeremyphoward_circular.png" width="18" style="margin-right:4px;"> @jeremyphoward </span> <span style="display:inline-flex;align-items:center;padding:2px 6px;border-radius:999px;border:1px solid #ccc;font-size:12px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/neonbjb_circular.png" width="18" style="margin-right:4px;"> @neonbjb </span> <span style="display:inline-flex;align-items:center;padding:2px 6px;border-radius:999px;border:1px solid #ccc;font-size:12px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/_arohan__circular.png" width="18" style="margin-right:4px;"> @_arohan_ </span> <span style="display:inline-flex;align-items:center;padding:2px 6px;border-radius:999px;border:1px solid #ccc;font-size:12px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/Altimor_circular.png" width="18" style="margin-right:4px;"> @Altimor </span> <span style="display:inline-flex;align-items:center;padding:2px 6px;border-radius:999px;border:1px solid #ccc;font-size:12px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/danielhanchen_circular.png" width="18" style="margin-right:4px;"> @danielhanchen </span> <span style="display:inline-flex;align-items:center;padding:2px 6px;border-radius:999px;border:1px solid #ccc;font-size:12px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/jeffdean_circular.png" width="18" style="margin-right:4px;"> @jeffdean </span> <span style="display:inline-flex;align-items:center;padding:2px 6px;border-radius:999px;border:1px solid #ccc;font-size:12px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/nearcyan_circular.png" width="18" style="margin-right:4px;"> @nearcyan </span> <span style="display:inline-flex;align-items:center;padding:2px 6px;border-radius:999px;border:1px solid #ccc;font-size:12px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/rronak__circular.png" width="18" style="margin-right:4px;"> @rronak_ </span> <span style="display:inline-flex;align-items:center;padding:2px 6px;border-radius:999px;border:1px solid #ccc;font-size:12px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/ericjang11_circular.png" width="18" style="margin-right:4px;"> @ericjang11 </span> <span style="display:inline-flex;align-items:center;padding:2px 6px;border-radius:999px;border:1px solid #ccc;font-size:12px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/BasilHalperin_circular.png" width="18" style="margin-right:4px;"> @BasilHalperin </span> <span style="display:inline-flex;align-items:center;padding:2px 6px;border-radius:999px;border:1px solid #ccc;font-size:12px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/Afinetheorem_circular.png" width="18" style="margin-right:4px;"> @Afinetheorem </span> <span style="display:inline-flex;align-items:center;padding:2px 6px;border-radius:999px;border:1px solid #ccc;font-size:12px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/dlbydq_circular.png" width="18" style="margin-right:4px;"> @dlbydq </span> <span style="display:inline-flex;align-items:center;padding:2px 6px;border-radius:999px;border:1px solid #ccc;font-size:12px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/IvanVendrov_circular.png" width="18" style="margin-right:4px;"> @IvanVendrov </span> <span style="display:inline-flex;align-items:center;padding:2px 6px;border-radius:999px;border:1px solid #ccc;font-size:12px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/tylercowen_circular.png" width="18" style="margin-right:4px;"> @tylercowen </span> <span style="display:inline-flex;align-items:center;padding:2px 6px;border-radius:999px;border:1px solid #ccc;font-size:12px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/RichardMCNgo_circular.png" width="18" style="margin-right:4px;"> @RichardMCNgo </span> <span style="display:inline-flex;align-items:center;padding:2px 6px;border-radius:999px;border:1px solid #ccc;font-size:12px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/tamaybes_circular.png" width="18" style="margin-right:4px;"> @tamaybes </span> <span style="display:inline-flex;align-items:center;padding:2px 6px;border-radius:999px;border:1px solid #ccc;font-size:12px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/finbarrtimbers_circular.png" width="18" style="margin-right:4px;"> @finbarrtimbers </span> </div> ### How software engineering might change: > [! ] > ![[images/ai-career-images/IvanVendrov_circular.png|40]] **Ivan Vendrov**: It will feel very dumb for humans to be writing code in the year 2030. The job of a software engineer will be in many ways unrecognizably different. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/finbarrtimbers_circular.png|40]] **Finbarr Timbers**: Coding is being commoditized, everything around it is becoming more valuable. AI software engineers are going to be so much better in five years, it's going to be astounding how good they are. And it'll be astounding how little it matters, because a lot of these problems aren't software problems. > > **Anonymous**: Think about the Jevons paradox. As something gets more efficient, we generally buy more of it. Software engineers are getting much more efficient. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/RichardMCNgo_circular.png|40]] **Richard Ngo**: Every software engineer might become some combination of product manager, security engineer, and team manager. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/tamaybes_circular.png|40]] **Tamay Besiroglu**: Software engineering will change because of AI. The now bottlenecked things are going to be very valuable. If you can do AI code reviews, if you can onboard AI systems, if you can speak to product managers and customers and provide that as context to AI systems, if you can verify the generated code works, that all becomes more valuable. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/neonbjb_circular.png|40]] **James Betker**: Software engineers might evolve into a combination of beta tester plus prompt engineer. Not writing code, just asking for things, testing them, and refining them in natural language. 2 years ago, AI wrote about 10% of my code and was an excellent productivity booster, last year it started writing more complicated code - entire functions and modules and probably contributed to about 50% of my code output. This year it's writing or touching about 75% of the total code and helps me find complex bugs and write comprehensive tests. There will be an asymptote to this capability rollout and human software engineers will probably work in the margin of that asymptote. We'll write more design docs and spend more time testing software and less time mucking around with code - in the same way that we rarely need to touch assembly language any more. --- ### Whether there'll still be jobs in a decade: > [! ] > ![[images/ai-career-images/finbarrtimbers_circular.png|40]] **Finbarr Timbers**: Jobs won't disappear by 2035 because of Baumol's cost disease, Amdahl's law, bottlenecks. The question is always can you provide more value than your salary costs. Jobs will look different. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/tylercowen_circular.png|40]] **Tyler Cowen**: Mostly I think we will always be at full employment. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/jacobmbuckman_circular.png|40]] **Jacob Buckman**: It's definitely going to be the case that humans are going to go from being the cheaper option to the more expensive option in a lot of cases. I view it as the information revolution, equivalent to the industrial revolution but for white collar labor instead of manual labor. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/tamaybes_circular.png|40]] **Tamay Besiroglu**: I expect a lot of job displacement over the next 10-20 years, job destruction and job creation. Higher churn. People will switch jobs more rapidly than they do today. > > **Anonymous**: 20% of jobs are destroyed every year, and 20% are created. I doubt AI will noticeably change those numbers, though it may start to have some impact on *which* jobs are destroyed and created. --- ### Why there can still be jobs even with more powerful AI: > [! ] > **Anonymous**: When more things are automated, the economy will be more wealthy because of the AI driven efficiency, which means we've got more money to spend, and that has to be met by some kind of supply side response. And the money goes to things that are supply constrained, one of which is humans. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/finbarrtimbers_circular.png|40]] **Finbarr Timbers**: Jobs will still exist even with significant automation because of Baumol's cost disease – as all the bits become cheaper, everything to do with atoms will become more expensive because that's the only thing remaining to spend money on. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/tamaybes_circular.png|40]] **Tamay Besiroglu**: If you take current tasks and you automate 90% of those tasks, we could still have very high employment, because we could have all the human workers work on those remaining 10%, and those remaining 10% have now become very important, because they help us unlock the value of AI. --- ### Whether software engineering goes away because of coding automation: > [! ] > ![[images/ai-career-images/tamaybes_circular.png|40]] **Tamay Besiroglu**: Think about chess. Chess is booming. Obviously AI systems are better at chess moves, but for many of the things humans who watch chess actually care a lot about, like charisma, entertainment, the AI systems are way, way behind. You might also think that engineers will be out of a job when AI beats their score on SWE-bench. But, there are other things that the person is providing beyond this very narrow thing of playing chess or writing lines of code. > > **Anonymous**: When someone says AI has made them at least 50% more productive, I ask, great, if I asked your manager, would they say that your team has achieved that same percentage increase in speed? And they laugh and say absolutely not! This is Amdahl's law. You can speed up lines of code, but you're bottlenecked by other things. --- ### Whether robots will do all the in-person jobs in a decade: > [! ] > ![[images/ai-career-images/finbarrtimbers_circular.png|40]] **Finbarr Timbers**: Robots are expensive. For a lot of tasks we'd need humanoid robots, those are complex machines and there's a minimum cost. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/jacobmbuckman_circular.png|40]] **Jacob Buckman**: A robot being more cost effective than a human will be very difficult. > > **Anonymous**: Robots are getting a lot better very quickly, but I think the cost thing is the main thing. It will remain the case that they're way more used in factories and warehouses and controlled environments than they are in anything involving direct customer interactions. --- ### Which roles may be impacted sooner: > [! ] > ![[images/ai-career-images/finbarrtimbers_circular.png|40]] **Finbarr Timbers**: If your only skill is coding, without product decisions or leadership experience, you'll be in a tough spot. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/jacobmbuckman_circular.png|40]] **Jacob Buckman**: If you're at an outsourcing consulting company that does basic implementation requests for clients, maybe you should be worried. I expect automation will progress in this order: first, lower-prestige computer-based jobs like outsourcing; next, successive waves of other knowledge work, starting from lower prestige roles and moving up to higher prestige positions; and finally, manual labor jobs. By the time FAANG employees are feeling stressed, everyone else will have already felt a lot of stress, and society will have changed somewhat and new jobs will already be visible. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/tamaybes_circular.png|40]] **Tamay Besiroglu**: Anything that you can do remotely, I think that's going to be automatable around middle of 2030s. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/Jsevillamol_circular.png|40]] **Jaime Sevilla**: The jobs that will be first on the chopping board I think are the kinds of things you would delegate to a contractor. I'd say 50% chance that we have AI that is as good as most humans in most remote tasks by 2035. --- ### Whether software engineering is still a good career to go into: > [! ] > ![[images/ai-career-images/finbarrtimbers_circular.png|40]] **Finbarr Timbers**: I think each company will hire fewer software engineers, but the software engineers they hire are going to be more senior and more well compensated. So the larger companies might have fewer software engineers, but in aggregate, I think we're going to see more software engineers, potentially much more. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/jacobmbuckman_circular.png|40]] **Jacob Buckman**: People should expect that software engineering more and more becomes something where you don't make that much money unless you're excellent at it. I would still recommend a career in software engineering for somebody who has that type of brain. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/tamaybes_circular.png|40]] **Tamay Besiroglu**: I'm moderately optimistic about people getting into software as a career, as long as they are fairly flexible in what they're able and willing to work on. However, I think it's possible that the software industry employs half as many workers in the mid 2030s. > > **Anonymous**: If someone likes to sit in a room by themselves and code, and they don't like meetings and other things, that should ring some alarm bells. --- ### Which career or major someone should do: > [! ] > ![[images/ai-career-images/kenneth0stanley_circular.png|40]] **Ken Stanley**: Now even the safe things are uncertain. If every path is risky, you might as well just follow your interests. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/RichardMCNgo_circular.png|40]] **Richard Ngo**: Most of my advice for people is not that dependent on AGI. Mostly when I'm talking to talented people, I say find the thing that most interests you and just pursue that. --- ### How entrepreneurship may be impacted: > [! ] > ![[images/ai-career-images/dlbydq_circular.png|40]] **Anish Tondwalkar**: I expect small firms (of the kind that historically characterized family businesses) to become much more common, as the headcount needed for virtually every activity shrinks. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/tylercowen_circular.png|40]] **Tyler Cowen**: Entrepreneurs, your ability to have an impact will grow phenomenally. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/jacobmbuckman_circular.png|40]] **Jacob Buckman**: It'll be easier to be an entrepreneur. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's good for entrepreneurs. The automatic loom made it way easier to be a weaver, but that wasn't good for the weavers. Every entrepreneur will have access to powerful AI tools, so the competition between entrepreneurs will be more intense than ever. > > **Anonymous**: It doesn't eat all the startup opportunities because it's the same thing as jobs. If it automates 90% of the tasks in an economy, then suddenly the last 10% becomes very valuable. Plus, people will have way more money, and they are going to spend it on something, including new products. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/finbarrtimbers_circular.png|40]] **Finbarr Timbers**: If you can find a niche where you go directly to users and provide value to them that's always going to be valuable, I don't think that'll change with AI. Baumol's cost paradox and Amdahl's law say the more you automate stuff, the more the stuff you can't automate takes up the system. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/neonbjb_circular.png|40]] **James Betker**: I definitely think startups can and will be able to chase narrow opportunities more efficiently than big companies or labs. --- ### What the challenges for people and society may be: > [! ] > ![[images/ai-career-images/jacobmbuckman_circular.png|40]] **Jacob Buckman**: I do think this will be a particular time of stress, in the same way that the Industrial Revolution was a time of stress for farmers and weavers. The stress is that your college degree, the first years of your career, and your professional network may not be useful, maybe you're going to have to find yourself having to start from scratch to figure out a way to be useful and get a job. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/kenneth0stanley_circular.png|40]] **Ken Stanley**: Almost every generation that ever existed had a more predictable situation than this generation. It's probably a good idea to learn how to deal with stress, whether or not the world changes. How do people who deal with stressful situations and still come out mentally healthy do it? That's probably something worth learning. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/Altimor_circular.png|40]] **Flo Crivello**: Practice your equanimity. Prepare to live through unusual times. --- ### What's needed to help society prepare: > [! ] > ![[images/ai-career-images/jeffdean_circular.png|40]] **Jeff Dean**: I think things that help people identify new opportunities and what kind of skills are needed are pretty important. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/kenneth0stanley_circular.png|40]] **Ken Stanley**: Even though we can't predict exactly what's coming, there's a real need for new institutions to help facilitate this transition. --- ### Which information sources are good: > [! ] > ![[images/ai-career-images/IvanVendrov_circular.png|40]] **Ivan Vendrov**: Cultivate skepticism towards existing institutions - e.g. most professors don't know what skills you'll need for the AI economy. You'll need to put in active work to curate who you're listening to. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/tylercowen_circular.png|40]] **Tyler Cowen**: Peers and mentors will become more important as the world changes more. --- ### How to prepare your career: > [! ] > ![[images/ai-career-images/jeremyphoward_circular.png|40]] **Jeremy Howard**: If you're a knowledge worker you should be really deeply engaging with this technology in a very practical, grounded way. Talk to lots of other people in your space, find the very best people who are working with AI in the very best way and then try and do it even better. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/jacobmbuckman_circular.png|40]] **Jacob Buckman**: Spend more time on the interesting parts of your job. I think how boring a task is is a decent proxy for how easy it is to automate. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/finbarrtimbers_circular.png|40]] **Finbarr Timbers**: AI makes everyone into quasi-entrepreneurs. You're using your taste and your judgement to direct these systems. Approach your job from that perspective, identify problems that people need solving. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/RichardMCNgo_circular.png|40]] **Richard Ngo**: Groups of people who trust each other and can honestly collaborate will be able to leverage AI to do incredible things. Figure out how to join or create such groups. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/ericjang11_circular.png|40]] **Eric Jang**: Stockpile a strong social network. It's another way to diffuse risk besides money. > > **Anonymous**: If you're an engineer that spends most of your time writing lines of code, you should spend more time on either leadership, or having more interaction with users or the organization's needs as a whole. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/kenneth0stanley_circular.png|40]] **Ken Stanley**: We do need to be prepared for potentially rapid change, because it's at least possible. I'm not even sure you can plan for this level of uncertainty. Maybe you should relax, follow your interests, do what you would normally do. --- ### Which parts of software careers will last longer: > [! ] > ![[images/ai-career-images/jacobmbuckman_circular.png|40]] **Jacob Buckman**: If people want safer roles, they should orient towards anything where it seems like data would be harder to collect. > > **Anonymous**: Anything involving human interaction, and where the whole point is that it's a human, will last longer. If it's remote and computer-based involving almost no human interaction, then yeah, I agree they may be automatable mid 2030s. But I'd also add, there's very very few things that involve no human interaction. Most software engineering jobs do involve lots of meetings. Even if those meetings are done remotely, there are lots of cases where it still matters that it's a human doing it. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/finbarrtimbers_circular.png|40]] **Finbarr Timbers**: I think the things that are going to be tougher to automate are the kind of higher level things. The harder problems are providing business value and navigating the humans within the organization. The closer you are to the real world or human interaction, the safer you are. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/IvanVendrov_circular.png|40]] **Ivan Vendrov**: There are also tasks that require deep physical intuition. Like a designer at Apple or something. There will still be a lot of value provided by humans doing that kind of thing. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/RichardMCNgo_circular.png|40]] **Richard Ngo**: Remote job automation depends a lot on whether it's the sort of thing you can do remotely in one hour, one day, one month or one year. The shorter duration tasks will be automated more quickly. --- ### Where there might be more jobs: > [! ] > ![[images/ai-career-images/tylercowen_circular.png|40]] **Tyler Cowen**: Lots of new jobs to come in energy and running medical trials! > > ![[images/ai-career-images/tamaybes_circular.png|40]] **Tamay Besiroglu**: The industries required for the increased compute spend I expect to see more jobs, including fabs, energy, data centers, robotics. The domains where tasks aren't automated will have wages rise, and potentially quite drastically. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/jacobmbuckman_circular.png|40]] **Jacob Buckman**: I think there might be an increase in the sorts of careers like enterprise sales or banking or upper management where a lot of it is really about what network you bring to the table. --- ### How you can get good at using AI: > [! ] > ![[images/ai-career-images/jeremyphoward_circular.png|40]] **Jeremy Howard**: Using AI tools correctly takes months and months of diligent study and practice. When you start doing it, you will be shit and you will get bad results. That's because you're shit at it, not because AI doesn't work. NB: regardless of how good or how shit at it you are, you'll over-estimate how much it's helping you, because AI does the easy/early bits fast, but makes the harder/later bits much slower/harder, unless you're very careful! > > ![[images/ai-career-images/Jsevillamol_circular.png|40]] **Jaime Sevilla**: Understand the basics of how AI works. You don't need to learn to code but it helps a lot to understand how AI is trained. > > **Anonymous**: There's a Tyler Cowen idea that AI is like having 1000 research assistants. People who are good at having research assistants should be good at using AI. What makes someone good at having 1000 research assistants or AI assistants? Basically it's around coordination. Packaging up work. Knowing what's important and having a really good sense of what you actually want. Invest in those skills. The important thing is to have a model of what AI can and can't do. One way of getting that is to understand how AI models are trained. --- ### Career advice for AI researchers or people who want to become AI researchers: > [! ] > ![[images/ai-career-images/jeremyphoward_circular.png|40]] **Jeremy Howard**: Mid-career AI researchers (in fact all levels!): focus on becoming really good coders. Learn to replicate interesting research papers from scratch. Code is the medium we use to experiment, so if you're better at it, you can run more complex and creative experiments more quickly. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/jacobmbuckman_circular.png|40]] **Jacob Buckman**: Get as close to as many gpus as you can as early as possible. Almost nothing else you could do is higher value. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/rronak__circular.png|40]] **Ronak Malde**: Stop studying, build. Go one layer deeper into the infra than feels comfortable, since that's where the value is. If you're on Langchain, write the agent loop yourself; if you're on Verl, write the pytorch yourself; If you're on Megatron, write the cuda kernels yourself. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/finbarrtimbers_circular.png|40]] **Finbarr Timbers**: People need to know you exist to give you opportunities. Write about interesting ideas you have or things you are thinking about. There is an extreme hunger for “interesting lunch conversation at DeepMind” level content (not hype boi threads, not paper level technical). > > ![[images/ai-career-images/_arohan__circular.png|40]] **Rohan Anil**: 1. Perspective matters more than novelty, many so-called ‘solved’ problems still hide unsolved challenges in the details. Don’t dismiss anything as trivial; breakthroughs are hidden in plain sight. 2. Don’t worry about pedigree or fitting in. Hinton bet on neural networks when the field dismissed them. The real breakthroughs come from researchers who ignore the consensus, think for themselves, and tackle hard problems—and that researcher can be you > > ![[images/ai-career-images/danielhanchen_circular.png|40]] **Daniel Han**: I would definitely watch MIT, Stanford videos much much earlier - CS231N, do FastAI courses, MIT's AI course, Gilbert Strang's courses + CS229 --- ### Which personal assets may increase in value: > [! ] > ![[images/ai-career-images/tylercowen_circular.png|40]] **Tyler Cowen**: Your personal reputation, your name, who knows you, who can vouch for you. Invest in all that. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/RichardMCNgo_circular.png|40]] **Richard Ngo**: Try to build relationships with people you can work directly with. Really good working relationships and high trust relationships feel important. > > **Anonymous**: The optimal allocation of tasks between humans and machines will change a lot. My view is the biggest comparative advantage of humans will be in the interpersonal elements. Dealing with other people. Anything involving human interaction, social skills, big organizations, bureaucracies, interpersonal relationships, all that stuff becomes more valuable and more important. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/kenneth0stanley_circular.png|40]] **Ken Stanley**: You can change your interests. Your interests are not stuck. As change becomes more rapid, opportunism probably does become increasingly important, including the ability to uncommit. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/jeremyphoward_circular.png|40]] **Jeremy Howard**: If you're at university, try to spend a lot of time doing other things, have a lot of side hustles, have a lot of side interests. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/nearcyan_circular.png|40]] **Near**: If you’re a Silicon Valley person who is capable of doing good work and getting job offers and such: 1) It's probably a good time to find allies. 2) Integrity and honesty are more important than ever. Do not compromise on it for any type of quick buck. The bucks will become easier and easier to make. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/dlbydq_circular.png|40]] **Anish Tondwalkar**: I would invest in the positional goods of career capital: networks, relationships, reputation. --- ### Which skills may increase in value: > [! ] > ![[images/ai-career-images/finbarrtimbers_circular.png|40]] **Finbarr Timbers**: The thing that's really going to matter is taste. > > **Anonymous**: Manager skills, especially technical management skills and organizational design, are very valuable. It's a very rare skill but that's precisely what you want to have if you're orchestrating AI. Designing the machine of your organization. Designing the right machine will become a really, really valuable skill. A highly valuable person in the AI world is someone who is great at dealing with other people, and who also really understands AI. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/Afinetheorem_circular.png|40]] **Kevin Bryan**: Anything AI can do 100% will become close to free. Anything you uniquely do as a complement to that now free factor of production becomes more valuable. You are unlikely to be able to guess what those tasks are, so you need to experiment. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/RichardMCNgo_circular.png|40]] **Richard Ngo**: There will be very high returns to being able to orient fast to changes. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/Jsevillamol_circular.png|40]] **Jaime Sevilla**: Creativity is going to be super great in the future. If you want to make your own movie, in five years it's going to be super easy. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/BasilHalperin_circular.png|40]] **Basil Halperin**: AI is a complement for being agentic. "You can just do things" is even more true when AI can help you out, and when AI can scale you. > > ![[images/ai-career-images/kenneth0stanley_circular.png|40]] **Ken Stanley**: Taste is a really interesting unique human capability, which is underrated. I think using taste as a compass for knowing what stepping stone to go to next, that's currently something we're way better at. Be really loyal to your interests and tastes, not just casually, but seriously going deep into what you find interesting and committing to it in some way so that you can become uniquely skilled in that area. --- ### Thank you to the people who gave answers: <div style="margin-top:4px;column-width:260px;column-gap:20px;font-size:12px;"> <div style="break-inside:avoid;display:flex;align-items:flex-start;gap:6px;margin-bottom:8px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/jacobmbuckman_circular.png" width="40" style="margin-top:2px;"> <div> <strong>Jacob Buckman</strong><br> Manifest AI, ex-Google Brain<br> <a href="https://x.com/jacobmbuckman">@jacobmbuckman</a> </div> </div> <div style="break-inside:avoid;display:flex;align-items:flex-start;gap:6px;margin-bottom:8px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/kenneth0stanley_circular.png" width="40" style="margin-top:2px;"> <div> <strong>Ken Stanley</strong><br> Lila Sciences, ex-OpenAI, Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned<br> <a href="https://x.com/kenneth0stanley">@kenneth0stanley</a> </div> </div> <div style="break-inside:avoid;display:flex;align-items:flex-start;gap:6px;margin-bottom:8px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/Jsevillamol_circular.png" width="40" style="margin-top:2px;"> <div> <strong>Jaime Sevilla</strong><br> Epoch AI<br> <a href="https://x.com/Jsevillamol">@Jsevillamol</a> </div> </div> <div style="break-inside:avoid;display:flex;align-items:flex-start;gap:6px;margin-bottom:8px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/jeremyphoward_circular.png" width="40" style="margin-top:2px;"> <div> <strong>Jeremy Howard</strong><br> Answer.AI, fast.ai<br> <a href="https://x.com/jeremyphoward">@jeremyphoward</a> </div> </div> <div style="break-inside:avoid;display:flex;align-items:flex-start;gap:6px;margin-bottom:8px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/neonbjb_circular.png" width="40" style="margin-top:2px;"> <div> <strong>James Betker</strong><br> OpenAI<br> <a href="https://x.com/neonbjb">@neonbjb</a> </div> </div> <div style="break-inside:avoid;display:flex;align-items:flex-start;gap:6px;margin-bottom:8px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/_arohan__circular.png" width="40" style="margin-top:2px;"> <div> <strong>Rohan Anil</strong><br> Anthropic, ex-Meta, ex-Google DeepMind<br> <a href="https://x.com/_arohan_">@_arohan_</a> </div> </div> <div style="break-inside:avoid;display:flex;align-items:flex-start;gap:6px;margin-bottom:8px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/Altimor_circular.png" width="40" style="margin-top:2px;"> <div> <strong>Flo Crivello</strong><br> Lindy<br> <a href="https://x.com/Altimor">@Altimor</a> </div> </div> <div style="break-inside:avoid;display:flex;align-items:flex-start;gap:6px;margin-bottom:8px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/danielhanchen_circular.png" width="40" style="margin-top:2px;"> <div> <strong>Daniel Han</strong><br> Unsloth AI<br> <a href="https://x.com/danielhanchen">@danielhanchen</a> </div> </div> <div style="break-inside:avoid;display:flex;align-items:flex-start;gap:6px;margin-bottom:8px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/jeffdean_circular.png" width="40" style="margin-top:2px;"> <div> <strong>Jeff Dean</strong><br> Google DeepMind, Google Research<br> <a href="https://x.com/jeffdean">@jeffdean</a> </div> </div> <div style="break-inside:avoid;display:flex;align-items:flex-start;gap:6px;margin-bottom:8px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/nearcyan_circular.png" width="40" style="margin-top:2px;"> <div> <strong>Near</strong><br> Auren, Elysian Labs<br> <a href="https://x.com/nearcyan">@nearcyan</a> </div> </div> <div style="break-inside:avoid;display:flex;align-items:flex-start;gap:6px;margin-bottom:8px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/rronak__circular.png" width="40" style="margin-top:2px;"> <div> <strong>Ronak Malde</strong><br> ex-Google DeepMind, ex-Windsurf<br> <a href="https://x.com/rronak_">@rronak_</a> </div> </div> <div style="break-inside:avoid;display:flex;align-items:flex-start;gap:6px;margin-bottom:8px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/ericjang11_circular.png" width="40" style="margin-top:2px;"> <div> <strong>Eric Jang</strong><br> 1X<br> <a href="https://x.com/ericjang11">@ericjang11</a> </div> </div> <div style="break-inside:avoid;display:flex;align-items:flex-start;gap:6px;margin-bottom:8px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/BasilHalperin_circular.png" width="40" style="margin-top:2px;"> <div> <strong>Basil Halperin</strong><br> Economist, University of Virginia<br> <a href="https://x.com/BasilHalperin">@BasilHalperin</a> </div> </div> <div style="break-inside:avoid;display:flex;align-items:flex-start;gap:6px;margin-bottom:8px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/Afinetheorem_circular.png" width="40" style="margin-top:2px;"> <div> <strong>Kevin Bryan</strong><br> Innovation Economist, University of Toronto<br> <a href="https://x.com/Afinetheorem">@Afinetheorem</a> </div> </div> <div style="break-inside:avoid;display:flex;align-items:flex-start;gap:6px;margin-bottom:8px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/dlbydq_circular.png" width="40" style="margin-top:2px;"> <div> <strong>Anish Tondwalkar</strong><br> dmodel, ex-OpenAI<br> <a href="https://x.com/dlbydq">@dlbydq</a> </div> </div> <div style="break-inside:avoid;display:flex;align-items:flex-start;gap:6px;margin-bottom:8px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/IvanVendrov_circular.png" width="40" style="margin-top:2px;"> <div> <strong>Ivan Vendrov</strong><br> ex-Midjourney, ex-Anthropic<br> <a href="https://x.com/IvanVendrov">@IvanVendrov</a> </div> </div> <div style="break-inside:avoid;display:flex;align-items:flex-start;gap:6px;margin-bottom:8px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/tylercowen_circular.png" width="40" style="margin-top:2px;"> <div> <strong>Tyler Cowen</strong><br> Economist, GMU, Marginal Revolution<br> <a href="https://x.com/tylercowen">@tylercowen</a> </div> </div> <div style="break-inside:avoid;display:flex;align-items:flex-start;gap:6px;margin-bottom:8px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/RichardMCNgo_circular.png" width="40" style="margin-top:2px;"> <div> <strong>Richard Ngo</strong><br> ex-OpenAI, ex-Google DeepMind<br> <a href="https://x.com/RichardMCNgo">@RichardMCNgo</a> </div> </div> <div style="break-inside:avoid;display:flex;align-items:flex-start;gap:6px;margin-bottom:8px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/tamaybes_circular.png" width="40" style="margin-top:2px;"> <div> <strong>Tamay Besiroglu</strong><br> Mechanize, ex-Epoch AI<br> <a href="https://x.com/tamaybes">@tamaybes</a> </div> </div> <div style="break-inside:avoid;display:flex;align-items:flex-start;gap:6px;margin-bottom:8px;"> <img src="images/ai-career-images/finbarrtimbers_circular.png" width="40" style="margin-top:2px;"> <div> <strong>Finbarr Timbers</strong><br> Ai2, ex-Midjourney, ex-DeepMind<br> <a href="https://x.com/finbarrtimbers">@finbarrtimbers</a> </div> </div> <div style="break-inside:avoid;margin-bottom:8px;"> <strong>Anonymous</strong><br> ex-Frontier Lab </div> </div> ---- ![[images/ai-career-images/chrisbarber_circular.png|40]] Created by Chris Barber: [@chrisbarber](https://x.com/chrisbarber). For more resources see: [[Start Here]]