Already juggled with the courses and the quirks of roommates, here is another element for the mental control list of first -year students: artificial intelligence arrives for their work.
It is not yet obvious if the AI will transform the positions of white passes or eliminate them completely. It is also not known if people will be replaced by machines or by workers who have the skills in AI they lack. What is clear is that warnings of what is often called knowledge jobs, the type of positions for college graduates could once count, are increasing.
“There is a wider feeling in air on the value of education at an era of artificial intelligence,” said the new dean of Harvard College, David Deming, to entrants of first year earlier this month.
Why we wrote this
Artificial intelligence takes jobs once managed by humans. Emerging technology also creates new opportunities and students adjust their majors to prepare for the future workplace.
And students listen.
“I don’t want to be one of the people who are unemployed when I leave university,” said Oluwamayokun Lawal, IT major at Saint-Louis University. Mr. Lawal, a college junior, moved certificates or areas of study, he continued at school to make himself more informed and employable.
“It is definitely a determining factor in the way I want to do my job,” explains Maria Anzalotti, junior at the Emerson College in Boston, who has a strong interest in writing. “Knowing that AI exists … makes me want to make sure that I am a superhuman, emphasizes man, the writer.”
The two professions are considered a high risk of AI disruption. The technology already generating 20% or more of their new software code, technological leaders predict mass layoffs by 2030.
The hiring by Big Tech of new colleges graduates has already collapsed at 7% of all hits, less than half of the share in 2019, according to a May report from the Signalfire venture capital company.
“The AI revolution is starting to have a significant and disproportionate impact on entry -level workers on the American labor market,” said a study last month by the digital economy laboratory of the University of Stanford. He found a 13% drop in employment for workers from 22 to 25 years old in the most exposed professions at AI.
Writing is considered one of these professions. An analysis of more than 900,000 new web pages (once the playing field of literature, history and the majors of creative writing) revealed that almost three -quarters of these pages included content generated by AI.
Space sharing with AI
A year ago, Merritt Hughes did not think that smart machines would have a lot of impact on a career in journalism. Then, during a course in AI and journalism this spring, the Emerson College Junior noticed how the major press organizations already incorporated technology as a research and analysis tool.
It was an outing.
“I could see myself going on a much smaller paper first – honestly, writing for a non -profit organization or something like that – simply because I think that aligns much more with my moral,” explains the junior college.
Accounting is one of these industries threatened by AI. In the past year, the large four companies, Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young and KPMG, dismissed workers or announced the potential elimination of positions up to a few thousand collectively.
“They can use AI to reconfigure jobs,” explains Matthew Anderson, an associate accountant and dean of diversity, equity and inclusion to Michigan State University. The paradox is that such cuts at the low low level hire more qualified people. The university is working on how to strengthen its undergraduate students so that they can qualify for these more qualified jobs.
The accounting majors need “more finance skills, some additional IT skills and analytical skills, the ability to use megadronned sets and handle them better,” he adds.
The potential of the increase
But this is just one side of the image. So far, evidence suggests that rather than replacing workers, technology is a tool making humans more productive. The use of AI jumped a year ago, the New York Federal Reserve Bank discovered in a survey of regional companies in August. But he also found that so far AI has not had a significant impact on the work numbers. Some companies hire due to technology, underlines a bank blog article.
With the kind permission of Maria Anzalotti
In the industries more exposed to AI, employee revenues increases in Triple The Speed of Other Sectors, according to the latest survey by the Global PwC consulting firm. Salaries increase at double speed.
Then there are the new jobs that technology will create.
An explosion of interest
By 2030, the AI will eliminate 92 million jobs worldwide, but it will also create 170 million new ones, predicted the World Economic Forum. It would be a net gain of 7% of the global labor market, open to students and other people with the right IA skills.
For the anecdote, “I think students are still optimistic about it,” explains Luay Nakhleh, dean of the engineering and computer science at Rice University. “They have read all the articles on the company X which does not engage in entry -level software developers. But they also understand at least two points: … we teach them solid fundamentals so that no matter where the domain goes, they will be ready for this. [And second,] If anything, they will be much stronger if they are exposed to AI and tools. »»
The engineering school of the University of Pennsylvania also launched its first major at first cycle AI this year and sees an explosion of interest.
When Chris Callison-Barch, a computer teacher, started teaching the only course of the school AI before the Chatgpt explosion on the stage, he had 150 students. This year, he waits for almost five times this number, filling the largest conference room on the campus at its capacity with 400 seats with 300 other online students.
“The feeling is: it is better to understand how to use AI than at all,” he adds.
Many students agree.
“I stayed in mathematics, but I definitely changed the way I approached my personal learning, especially outside the class,” explains Gabe Riedel, a senior of California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California. He took online lessons on how to use AI. “This will certainly remove certain jobs, but I also think that it has the possibility of providing new jobs.”
AI is what attracted Grace Koepke to American University. The Junior College is registered with a double degree program where it will eventually obtain a master’s degree in analysis and AI.
“I wanted to study something that would really prepare me for the future,” wrote Ms. Koepke in an e-mail answer to a journalist’s questions. “Companies want people who understand automatic learning, automation, ethical AI and how to transform data into real ideas. This combination of commercial knowledge and AI literacy is not yet super common, so I think that gives me a competitive advantage. ”
The editors of the supervisory staff Laurent Belsie and Hannah Goeke reported to Boston; Ira Porter has reported to Dover, Delaware; And Goodluck Ajeh reported to Elsah, Illinois.
