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For the past 5-10 years, there have been a lot of predictions about how new technology and Artificial Intelligence would do away with blue collar jobs first. Those predictions were wrong, and it now looks like white collar jobs and even even some creative jobs will be the first to be disrupted.

Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI spoke about how wrong people’s predictions have been in a recent interview with Reid Hoffman.

“I think it’s interesting that if you ask people 10 years ago about how AI was going to have an impact, with a lot of confidence from most people, you would’ve heard, first, it’s going to come for the blue collar jobs working in the factories, truck drivers, whatever. Then it will come for the low skill white collar jobs. Then the very high skill, really high IQ white collar jobs, like a programmer or whatever. And then very last of all and maybe never, it’s going to take the creative jobs. And it’s going exactly the other direction.

There’s an interesting reminder in here generally about how hard predictions are, but more specifically about we’re not always very aware, maybe even ourselves, of what skills are hard and easy, what uses most of our brain and doesn’t or how difficult bodies are to control or make or whatever.” - OpenAI CEO Sam Altman

(Here is a link to the full conversation that Reid Hoffman had with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
https://youtu.be/WHoWGNQRXb0)

AI has been in the news a lot lately after the release of ChatGPT by OpenAI. So what is ChatGPT? I asked ChatGPT that question.

“ChatGPT is an AI-powered language model developed by OpenAI. It uses state-of-the-art deep learning techniques to generate human-like text based on the input it receives. With a massive amount of training data and advanced algorithms, ChatGPT can perform a wide range of language tasks such as answering questions, generating creative writing, translating text, and more. ChatGPT has been trained on a diverse range of internet text, allowing it to have a broad understanding of general knowledge and cultural references. This makes it a powerful tool for conversational AI applications and an ideal solution for businesses looking to automate customer service or generate human-like text content.” - ChatGPT

Next I asked it for the top ten examples of types of things it can do.

“Here are the top 10 examples of what ChatGPT can do:

1. Question Answering: ChatGPT can answer questions based on its training data.

2. Text generation: It can generate coherent text on a variety of topics, from news articles to fiction.

3. Conversation: ChatGPT can hold a conversation, maintaining context and understanding over multiple turns.

4. Translation: ChatGPT can translate text from one language to another, using its understanding of multiple languages.

5. Text completion: It can complete a partially written sentence or paragraph based on the context.

6. Text summarization: ChatGPT can summarize long text into shorter, more concise text.

7. Sentiment Analysis: ChatGPT can analyze and categorize text into positive, negative, and neutral sentiments.

8. Text classification: It can classify text into different categories, such as spam, news, or entertainment.

9. Named Entity Recognition: ChatGPT can identify named entities such as people, organizations, and locations in text.

10. Chatbot development: ChatGPT can be used as the basis for developing AI-powered chatbots, allowing businesses to automate customer service or generate human-like text content.”

I’m sharing all this because it has significant implications for the young people today thinking about their careers as well as parents and teachers who are giving advice and educating these students. Below are some of my thoughts and advice I’m giving to my own kids.

Physical trades/blue collar jobs - these are going to be in high demand for a long time to come and will be the last to be disrupted. There is already a big shortage of trade workers because of the universal push towards college that has existed for the past 2-3 decades. Now, the US is set to re-industrialize and the demand for trade workers should only increase in the next few decades. The more skill involved in the blue collar work, in general, the more job security there will be.

White collar work with a physical component - Many healthcare jobs would fall into this category and I believe they are going to be pretty safe from significant disruption for quite some time to come. Doctors, dentists, nurses, physical therapists etc.

White collar work - These jobs are going to have the biggest target on them. Low-skill white collar jobs will be the first impacted. AI in it’s current form is already more than capable of replacing a lot of really basic office type jobs. But high skill/knowledge jobs like programmers and lawyers are also going to have a target on them, especially because of how much money could be saved. In the future there probably won’t be very many low-skilled programmers or lawyers.

Creative industries: arts, media, and entertainment, such as writers, musicians, actors, or photographers. These areas will undergo massive disruption. The skills are awesome to have, but it’s going to get exponentially more difficult to make a career out of them.

So in summary:

AI is going after jobs where people just use their brains.

If a job uses brains and the body, it’s definitely more safe from disruption. At least for now.

To try out ChatGPT for yourself for free, go to: https://chat.openai.com/

Here’s a few ideas to get you started. Tell it to write you a funny kids story about two random animals that takes place in a location of your choosing. Be as specific as you would like for things you would like included in the story. Ask it to summarize a book of the Bible in one paragraph. Ask it a very specific question about a plant on your property or how to do a complex task. Ask it to write a 5 paragraph essay on any animal you can think of. Tell it to write 7 marketing ideas for something you would like to sell or to come up with a list of 10 possible book titles for a book you would like to write about. (tell it the basic premise of the book)

Also, try out Stable Difusion https://stablediffusionweb.com/#demo
Use some of the examples at the bottom to get your creativity sparked and to see how specific you can be when describing the image/graphic you want it to produce. 

(Post first seen on my personal website RyanFinlay.com)

AI Will Disrupt Blue Collar Jobs Last

Editorial by Michael Kurtz

Jim Lehrer died last Thursday at age 85, and with his passing another living example of civility and objectivity in the media is gone. Mr. Lehrer was news anchorman for 36 years for Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). In a brief memoriam statement on television the other night, longtime political commentator and former adviser to Presidents Nixon, Ford and Reagan, David Gergen paid tribute to his late friend Jim. In describing the lengths that Jim Lehrer went to remain an objective journalist, Gergen stated that Lehrer never voted in any election as he didn’t want anyone to think he was taking a political side. Gergen went on to state that it was because of this earned reputation of steadfast objectiveness in his work that Jim Lehrer was asked to moderate 12 U.S. Presidential debates. More than any other person in history. 

As quoted in a New York Times article, Lehrer once stated, “I have an old-fashioned view that news is not a commodity. News is information that’s required in a democratic society, and Thomas Jefferson said a democracy is dependent on an informed citizenry. That sounds corny, but I don’t care whether it sound corny or not. It’s the truth.” 

We now live in a world where if someone doesn’t like what they hear in the media their immediate response is “fake news.” While the public likes to blame a biased news media who they feel represent different segments of political ideology, the reality is we are all to blame. How often do we share a story on social media without fact checking it first? How quick are we to believe false information that confirms to our preconceived notions and dismiss facts that might challenge our beliefs? While we, the citizenry, are all culpable the media is not above reproach either. Agenda driven “journalism” is becoming more and more common. Whether due to political motivations or simply to drive sales through the titillation of sensationalism and controversy, the outer fringes in the “news media” are contributing to the erosion of public trust in the news. 

This all brings me to recent news stories about the County Commissioners. As the County HR Director I’m often asked to the hold the moral compass of our county government and provide direction. It can be an uncomfortable position to be in, but it is responsibility I take seriously with my only allegiance being to what is legal, ethical and in the best interest of the efficient operations of the County. Thus, it is hard for me to stand on the sidelines when allegations of misconduct are being wrongly made towards this Board of Commissioners.

For the most part I have been involved in the matter on the periphery. However, I was included in the discussions regarding the Oregonian’s request for 650 pages of receipts and records. I saw the email from the Oregonian reporter that came at 3 p.m. on Tuesday with accusatory questions that needed be responded to by Wednesday at noon. I should have known just by the tone of the questions and the unreasonably short deadline, that the Commissioners wouldn’t be portrayed in a favorable light; but my faith in an institution so important to democracy that it’s protections are described in the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution couldn’t allow me to even imagine what would follow. 

What followed was a story with a headline stating that Douglas County used federal safety net money on pet travel and first-class airline flights. Both of these allegations have been proven to be false. It doesn’t say much for the rest of the article when the headline isn’t even correct. The Board of Commissioners addressed these and several other false allegations at their last public meeting in a very calm, detailed and measured point by point response. However, despite their rebuttal, the damage has already been done. As Jonathon Swift once wrote, falsehood flies and the truth comes limping after it. But this damage is not just to the individual and collective reputations of the Board, but to the integrity of the news media. 

Despite all this I remain optimistic. I refuse to believe that the legacy of Jim Lehrer doesn’t still live in the hearts of some of today’s journalists. I still believe that there are some journalists who are able to cast aside their personal bias and objectively pursue the facts; and present those facts whether or not it conforms with their own beliefs. I know there are journalists who’s only goal is provide the news and not make it. To all of you, I salute the work you do. Don’t stop doing what you do. As corny as it sounds, democracy is dependent upon you.

"Michael Kurtz is the Human Resources Director for Douglas County and a former Army Journalist who received the Bronze Star for his work during Operation Desert Storm." 

### Contact: Michael Kurtz, Human Resources Director Douglas County Human Resources Department, Douglas County Courthouse, 1036 SE Douglas Avenue, Roseburg, Oregon (541) 440-4405 - mkurtz@co.douglas.or.us

AI Will Disrupt Blue Collar Jobs Last

A Salute to Fair and Objective Journalism