Artificial intelligence threatens all jobs of the 20th century

Nasim Nicholas Taleb, a philosopher, mathematician and author of the famous book Strong Black, has an interesting opinion about artificial intelligence. He believes that artificial intelligence threatens all modern jobs of the 20th century. In other words, if your job didn’t exist in 1900, it probably will (or will be done by artificial intelligence) soon. But bakers, philosophers and athletes will remain.

Nasim Nicholas Taleb says in a new tweet: “Every job invented in the 20th century is threatened by artificial intelligence.” We know that the 20th century was the era of the emergence of large companies, bureaucracy and various layers of management. Careers such as manager consultant, stock market data analyst, office clerk, data entry officer and even many accounting and legal branches were born in this period.

These tasks usually involve transferring information, filling out forms, and following a set of fixed algorithms. Exactly what big language models like ChatGPT are designed to do. In other words, these jobs can be considered “artificial” and the best person who can do them is artificial intelligence.

Nasim Nicholas Taleb’s opinion about artificial intelligence

There is a famous theory called “Lindy effect” which says that the longer an idea or business lives, the more likely it will survive in the future. So, when an emerging phenomenon like artificial intelligence arrives, first those jobs that have a shorter lifespan are more at risk. Older jobs, on the other hand, are unlikely to be replaced as easily.

AI can’t fix your sink, can’t care for a patient with true compassion, and can’t taste flavors like a chef. But artificial intelligence can write a company’s annual report in a few seconds; What a 20th century employee spends time doing those days. So maybe in order to survive in the age of artificial intelligence, it is necessary to return to the roots. In this era, jobs that require moral judgment, physical presence, real risk-taking, and creativity will become valuable.