I recently had a good friend call me with a dilemma and he asked me if I would talk to his son. His son was considering putting his third year in college on hold to pursue his computer animation career in Southern California.

I got a call later that evening from my friend’s son and we discussed various topics, but we soon got into a far more interesting discussion around the future of animation, CGI, acting, writing and all the various roles within the entertainment industry. We pondered the question, “What will the role and purpose be of a computer animation major in five to 10 years in the Age of AI?” This question should be asked of every college major and every role in every job.

Will AI kill your college major?

No, artificial intelligence will not kill your college major, but how many graduates from each major will be needed in the job market of the future? Whenever an innovative technology or advancement occurs, there have historically been those who have presented doom-and-gloom predictions, which were usually alarmist, and did not lead to mass human replacement within the overall workforce. Are those presenting these gloomy predictions regarding AI right this time?

The Age of AI may result in a net loss of jobs over the coming years, affecting white-collar jobs, and increasingly affecting physical labor jobs as android technology becomes more advanced. The comparisons between the personal computer in the workplace and AI are dramatic. The PC itself did not have inherent learning capabilities. The PC revolutionized how we work by bringing productivity tools to users, enhanced communication capabilities, increased efficiency and delivered programmed automation. The PC, and the internet, resulted in a net gain in jobs.

However, the PC relied on explicit instructions from humans to serve as a conduit between humans and technology. AI on the other hand has the capability to not only reason, learn, develop tactics and make decisions, but do so at warp speed. More significantly, AI can make decisions without human input.

Benchmarking: comparing human performance against AI

Earlier this year, OpenAI, Open Research and the University of Pennsylvania produced a paper entitled “An Early Look at the Labor Market Impact Potential of Large Language Models.” The paper presented the potential exposure intensity across the labor market from AI. We see headlines in the news such as “AI could replace 80% of jobs in the next few years,” but we must put headlines like this into context. What is unknown at present is how long it will take for companies to adopt and incorporate AI widely into the technology that helps them operate their businesses. Businesses will need to perform benchmarking between human and AI productivity.

Although the PC helped humans be more productive, it did not necessarily free humans from menial work and in some cases led to more complex and time-consuming workflows for humans to follow. AI has the ability to perform menial and complex tasks within seconds.

Depending upon what is being produced either by or in conjunction with AI, the time to create product or output will be exponentially accelerated. The timing for when AI will be fully implemented and realized within various fields and industries will vary from months to years. In the past it was less skilled and less educated workers who bore the brunt of automation, but AI will bring significant change to white-collar workers, those with more education and specialties.

As time progresses, we can expect an increasing number of roles and job functions to undergo benchmarking against AI, comparing the performance of humans and AI within the workplace. This benchmarking approach is likely to resemble the one already witnessed in the realm of manufacturing automation over the past few decades.

To illustrate, consider a scenario where humans are stationed in a specific segment of a large assembly line, performing tasks within a designated timeframe. The cost of their labor, along with their efficiency in completing work, would be evaluated against the cost and speed of automating that section of the assembly line. Based on such an analysis, a company may choose to replace some or all of those workers with automation.

AI takes machinery and manufacturing automation a step further in that AI could grow to a point where it is not only assembling the product, but it is also designing the product, marketing the product, selling the product, as well as delivering the product to the consumer.

In the short term let us examine how AI can have an impact on a writer for a tech news site. Today it may take that writer three to four days to write an article. Tomorrow that same writer, using AI, can produce, edit, review and publish between three and five articles a day. Taking this a step further, AI on its own can produce more content by itself than there are humans to consume the content AI is capable of producing. This brings us back to one of the fundamental questions: How many people will be needed in certain roles in the Age of AI?

What college majors does ChatGPT think will be affected by AI?

Below is the ChatGPT output of two simple questions asked of it: 1) Which college majors will AI disrupt the most? and 2) Which college majors will AI disrupt the least?

Most-affected majors (source: ChatGPT)

• Data science and analytics: AI technologies, such as machine learning and automated data analysis, have the potential to streamline data processing, visualization and decision-making. While AI can enhance data analysis, it may also automate certain tasks traditionally performed by data scientists and analysts.
• Computer science and engineering: AI and machine learning are integral parts of computer science and engineering. As AI technology advances, certain programming and development tasks may become automated, requiring professionals in these fields to adapt their skill sets to work alongside AI systems or focus on more complex problem-solving.
• Journalism and media: AI technologies have already started impacting journalism through automated news writing, content curation and data-driven reporting. While AI can enhance certain aspects of journalism, it may also require journalists to adapt their skills by leveraging AI tools, verifying AI-generated content and focusing on in-depth analysis, investigative reporting and storytelling.
• Business and finance: AI technologies can significantly impact the fields of business and finance by automating tasks such as data analysis, financial modeling and risk assessment. This disruption may require professionals in these domains to leverage AI tools effectively, interpret AI-generated insights and focus on more complex problem-solving and strategic decision-making.
• Law: AI has the potential to impact legal research, contract analysis and document review by automating certain routine tasks. While AI can provide valuable support to legal professionals, it may also require lawyers to develop new skills in working alongside AI systems, interpreting AI-generated insights and focusing on complex legal analysis and advisory roles.
• Medicine and healthcare: AI has the potential to impact various aspects of healthcare, including diagnostics, medical imaging, drug discovery and personalized treatment. With advancements in AI, certain routine tasks performed by medical professionals, such as radiologists analyzing medical images, may be automated. This disruption may require healthcare professionals to develop new skills and adapt to working alongside AI systems.

Least-affected majors (source: ChatGPT)

• Psychology and counseling: These fields require a deep understanding of human behavior, emotions and mental processes. While AI can assist in certain aspects, the complexities of human psychology and the need for empathy make these fields less susceptible to disruption.
• Social sciences and humanities: Majors like sociology, anthropology, philosophy, history and literature involve critical thinking, analysis of human societies, cultures and ideas. These fields emphasize the exploration of human experiences, ethics and values, which are less likely to be fully replaced by AI.
• Education and teaching: While AI can assist in certain educational tasks, such as adaptive learning or providing personalized feedback, the role of teachers in fostering human connection, mentorship and guidance is irreplaceable. Teaching requires understanding individual student needs, motivation, and social-emotional development.
• Healthcare professions: Although AI can enhance healthcare practices, certain professions like nursing, physical therapy, occupational therapy, and other patient-centered roles involve direct human interaction, empathy and personalized care. These aspects of healthcare make it less susceptible to full disruption by AI.
• Environmental sciences: Fields like environmental conservation, ecological research, and environmental policy involve complex interactions between ecosystems, natural resources and human activities. These disciplines often require fieldwork, data analysis, and decision-making that involve a deep understanding of the environment and its impact on human societies.
• Fine arts and performing arts: Majors such as painting, sculpture, music, dance, theater and other creative arts rely heavily on human imagination, artistic expression and emotional interpretation. While AI can be used as a tool in creative processes, the unique qualities of human creativity and interpretation make these fields less vulnerable to disruption.

Although the majority of the ChatGPT output is predictable and lacks thoroughness, it is interesting to note that healthcare stands out in both most-affected and least-affected majors. In this field, the integration of AI would primarily involve a redistribution of roles within healthcare, without considering the potential effects on conventional back-office positions within the industry.

Additionally, various roles within psychology, counseling, healthcare and law usually require a combination of local, state and federal licensing, but ChatGPT did not point this out. For example, significant societal and regulatory changes would have to occur prior to AI being used as a licensed therapist.

Noticeably absent is the role of researchers in all disciplines who may use AI to accelerate aspects of their research but would most likely be involved in reaching innovative conclusions. These conclusions would, in turn, contribute to human as well as AI knowledge evolution.

One of the more surprising ChatGPT outputs in least-affected majors is fine arts and performing arts, which, put into ChatGPT context, might indicate that there will still be a market for art produced by humans, a market for real humans performing, and a job market for graphic designers who know how to manipulate AI to produce high-quality art and entertainment.

It should be noted that none of the ChatGPT output addresses the issue of how many people will be needed within the job market to perform these roles in the future. We are in the early days of AI, and AI job benchmarking is either sparse or nonexistent for most roles and related majors. Universities will have the additional challenge of having to recalibrate numerous majors within academia as well as readjust how many students will be needed in each major.

Do not use AI in place of your college learning experience

How effectively you are able to use AI in the future will be dependent upon three key factors:

1) You will need to have knowledge as a basis of how you input requirements into AI to yield the desired output.

2) You will need to be knowledgeable to validate that AI output has met the desired input requirements.

3) You will need strong critical thinking skills in providing AI guidance and assessing AI output.

For certain college majors, AI can be used to perform some if not most of the vast majority of class assignments. AI effectiveness will vary by major, but AI represents an extraordinary temptation for college students and professionals alike.

When students step into a classroom, read assigned books, or meet with a professor during office hours, those students are engaged in knowledge transfer. It is not just the knowledge gained in the transferring of knowledge, but also bringing disparate pieces of knowledge together to form cohesive and sometimes innovative output.

Students who become too dependent upon AI in college and who are not gaining knowledge and learning how to solve problems may find themselves facing difficulty within their future careers. If you find yourself using AI and producing output such as papers and other academic work that you do not understand or cannot validate, that may be a sign that you are depending upon AI output that you cannot defend.

Conclusion

My friend’s son’s use case is one of many that should be seriously examined as roles are redefined by AI in the future. It is entirely plausible that screenplays could be written using AI, requiring far fewer writers to produce the content. It is entirely plausible that AI-generated screenplays could be used to produce full-featured AI movies and TV shows, with less and less human editing required in years to come.

It is also entirely plausible that the consumers of those movies and TV shows will not be able to make the distinction between a human actor and an AI-generated actor. The downstream impacts could be significant for many roles within this industry, from makeup artists to cinematographers to sound engineers.

Although it is currently hard to imagine that all roles within this use case will be eliminated by AI, it is not hard to see how there will be fewer of these roles required to produce movies and TV shows. And though this is only one example, we need to think about how AI will have an impact on each industry and the role that it will play in day-to-day work.

No matter what your future academic or career goals are, be the person in the room who can raise your hand to say that you have used and understand AI. Your knowledge of how to use AI in combination with the knowledge that you have gained through pursuing your college major may prove to be a make-or-break moment in getting your first job and achieving your career goals.

Joseph Hickman has worked in various prominent tech companies such as Oracle Corp., Google LLC and Tesla Inc. He wrote this article for SiliconANGLE. His previous articles include “Your workers want to keep working from home. Now what?” , “Dear Twitter employees: Welcome to a new world” and “Dear CEO: Your employees are already using AI to do their work. What’s your AI plan?”

Images: Joseph Hickman/Midjourney