Last week, I wrote that the world will still need software engineers to use AI. However, I’m much less certain that every job is safe. Translation and customer service roles may face challenges soon, and when autonomous vehicles become operational, we may need far fewer drivers. Even in software engineering, it’s uncertain whether the world will require vastly more software development.. The truth is, no one can make accurate predictions about the future labor market; we simply do not know.
In the best-case scenario, increased demand and new job roles will emerge, immediately replacing any lost jobs without the need for additional training or reskilling. But in the worst case, there are very few jobs remaining in five years. What should we do to prepare when the options are a post-scarcity Xandadu or horrible dystopia? We should be antifragile.
Antifragility is not my invention; it comes from Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s 2012 book Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder. In it, he describes how to take advantage of uncertainty. Nothing is less certain than the future of AI, so how can we apply these lessons to the next several years?
Upside
Our first goal should be to make sure we get the upside of any positive impacts of AI. If things are terrible, they’re terrible. But if they’re great, we want them to be great for us. We can invest our time or our money now for future upside:
- Work in the AI field. This doesn’t have to be software engineering; you can consult, teach, sell, or write about AI. Or you can work for an AI company doing whatever it is you do now. Either way, you’ll have more work as work becomes more about AI.
- Invest money in AI. Fortunately, index funds like the S&P 500 or a NASDAQ fund are already heavily weighted towards tech companies. I’m not confident which companies will “win” AI, but investing in all of them will catch at least some of the upside.
Optionality
Because the future is so uncertain, it’s hard to predict what skills will still be useful or what companies will be hiring. The next principle of antifragility is to maximize your available options, thereby maximizing your chance of benefiting from AI. I strongly believe that everyone should be using and understanding today’s AI tools. There’s no guarantee, but today’s tools are likely to be the predecessors of the next tools. Even if they aren’t, many skills are likely to be transferable.
If you’re a specialist, expand into more skills and fields. If the entire market for ground transportation is wiped clean, you don’t want to be 30 years into a driving career without other skills. Explore your interests and try things. Aim to build up enough knowledge and experience such that you could get any of a number of unrelated jobs.
Build up a network of AI professionals. Having a strong network is useful throughout all of life, but it is more important in times of significant change. People who are heavily investing their time or money in AI are likely to have the most upside from an AI-heavy future. And if they are succeeding, they may be able to help you land those future opportunities.
Barbell Investment
One possible future is that software engineering at an AI company has massive upside. But another is that software engineering proves to be highly automatable. Who is to say whether changing careers to software engineering will be a positive or a negative? Nassim Nicholas Taleb recommends investing with a barbell strategy:
A weight-lifting barbell has heavy weights on each end, without any weight in the middle. In finance, this implies investing in both a safe bet like treasury bonds (low downside) and highly speculative individual stocks (high upside). The lack of weight in the middle of the barbell means that you should not invest in moderate growth stocks.
Keep the barbell strategy in mind as you invest your time and money in AI. As you build your skills, consider some skills in fields least likely to be affected by AI requiring personal interaction or physical labor. Nursing is a perfect example, as it requires both. At the other end of the barbell, learn those skills like prompt engineering that may have huge upside. To apply the barbell strategy to financial investment, find stocks or funds that have little overlap with AI. Treasury and municipal bonds may be a good choice, as well as investments in other industries like energy. Meanwhile, make a high-upside investment that is weighted towards tech, such as a NASDAQ fund.
Antifragile
It would be easier if I could guarantee a skill set, career path, and investment portfolio that will do great over the next several years. Instead, what I can guarantee is that there is going to be a lot of change, and I can guarantee that no one can guarantee the future. However, you can maximize your outlook by getting in position to receive the upside and setting up options for yourself, no matter what the future holds. This is what I’ve been doing with this blog, my social network, and especially my work on Microsoft 365 Copilot.
Why don’t you share what you are doing to maximize your upside and optionality for the coming AI wave? You were probably linked here from LinkedIn or X/Twitter; go ahead and drop a comment there. Or if you don’t know how to get started, perhaps someone will have a suggestion for your situation.
