What Value Do You Provide?

Respect, man

I recently overheard the following interaction in the Leverett dining hall while attending office hours for my Operating Systems class (with anonymized names):

Jeff sees his friend in the dining hall, "oh hey Brian, what are you doing here?"

Brian replies, "I'm here for Differential Topology office hours. I'm having some trouble with this week's problem set."

J: "I took that class last year, I'm sure now you could just chat (referring to using ChatGPT to solve the problems) the questions."

B: "I mean, sure, but I want to understand the material and do it myself."

Jeff, expressing his admiration, "oh, respect, man, I would have totally chatted them if I could have. It does most of my classes for me now."

AI and Jobs

There's no denying that AI is going to change the world (for better or for worse). It already is. While the future is too uncertain to make concrete predictions about the job market in any industry, many economists predict massive layoffs that could impact tens (hundreds?) of millions of people if AI becomes sufficiently advanced and cheap enough to replace some types of jobs.

I study Computer Science, so one of my most recurring and worrying thoughts is "what is AI going to do to Software Engineering?" It seems like every month, a new model comes out that blows previous ones out of the water on all benchmarks, and then layoffs follow shortly thereafter (though I think this is shortsighted, but that's for another post). A year ago, I thought AI was a neat party trick that could be useful to write one-off scripts. Now, any given frontier lab model can do my peers' graduate-level CS, Math, and Statistics homework, and is probably a better developer than most of them.

I would be lying if I said I was not worried about how far models might advance in another year, two, or even three (when I graduate). I think timelines like "AI will replace all Software Engineers in 3-6 months" are stupid, mostly marketing, and completely unrealistic for various reasons, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't worried at least a little bit.

To be fully explicit, I don't think Software Engineering will be the only industry affected. Lots (all?) of white-collar jobs are probably vulnerable. Even if this rhetoric is just unrealistic hype, I think the outcome is far too dangerous to dismiss or not consider seriously.

Why do we educate?

A common criticism that I hear of modern education (but vehemently disagree with) is that it is too abstract and not practical enough. The people who make these statements usually tend to follow it with the idea that education should teach specific skills and tools that are useful and in demand in the workforce. Initially, these statements seem reasonable, but are ultimately misguided for the vast majority of jobs (and I suspect this will become increasingly true).

Note that I think the trades (electricians, plumbers, construction, nurses, etc.) require practical skills, but good practitioners are educated (see below). Even then, the skills required for these careers are often learned on the job through apprenticeships or shadowing, rather than inside the classroom.

So what is the point of education? In my mind, there are two elements:

1: To become deeper, more critical, and capable thinkers and problem solvers. This is primarily achieved by repeatedly doing things that are hard in various domains.

2: To become a better citizen of the world. This is achieved through exposure to diverse content that forces one to confront their biases and assumptions.

Both of these elements are worthwhile pursuits on their own, but they also make a person employable. They are also inseparable, and the second is a natural consequence of the first.

Notice the list doesn't include "learn to compute a derivative", "write a really good policy memo", or "memorize historical facts". While you'll probably have left college being able to do these things, they were never the point.

History has repeatedly shown us that technology changes the way we do work and live life. AI is no exception. Technology makes jobs that were previously stable and common obsolete overnight. While I don't have any empirical data to back this claim up, it seems pretty obvious (think about "human computers" that did math being replaced by the computers we have today).

On the flip side, new jobs were created as a result of computers. While some people seem to think AI will replace all jobs, I really don't know what will happen. Personally, I think of this as an AI Wager (with people upskilling being the positive outcome, though I recognize that this has problems).

There is short-term pain for those affected, and unfortunately, it seems hard to avoid in our capitalistic society. As people's skills are made obsolete by technology, they lose their jobs, miss mortgage payments, and have to make impossible decisions like picking between their life-saving medication or food for their family. This is not the way things should be, and we have a lot of work to do as a society.

Wherever the world and technology go, it is important that we prioritize humanity.

Prompting Isn't A Real Skill

So how do we survive? How does my generation ensure they are not left behind (more so than we already have been)? I don't have a concrete recommendation like learn to code (in fact, you should probably run far, far away unless you have a passion for it).

We survive by being educated. As our skills become irrelevant, the only thing that we have left is our ability to dynamically adapt to a changing world and continue solving hard problems, and if our skills become obsolete, our foundation of problem-solving and critical thinking will set us apart. This is the value that we provide when concrete skills become commoditized by technology.

And if I'm wrong? If humans are totally replaced? Society will probably collapse, and it won't matter anyway. This is the other half of my wager.

So, the next time you have an assignment and are confronted with the decision of using AI or doing it by hand, I challenge you to do it by hand.

Not only will you maintain your academic integrity (yes, using ChatGPT to write your essay or do your math homework for your IS cheating), but you will learn more and become a more capable thinker in the process. Using AI to "check a box" and complete an assignment is a waste of everyone involved's time.

This isn't to say that AI cannot be used to learn and develop these skills. It definitely can be. But I have an ocean-front property in Idaho to sell you if you believe students only use it this way.

To the educators who believe that their students need to learn to use AI or be left behind, I have two things to say:

1: Students are going to use it outside of the classroom (and inside, whether you like/know it or not) and learn to use it regardless. In fact, they probably know more about it than you. Just as I grew up in the internet-native generation, I suspect there will be an "AI-native" generation.

2: The technology is advancing fast enough that anything you teach a senior in August will be obsolete by the time they graduate in May or June.

But across all of modern history, what has not become obsolete? Problem-solving skills and critical thinking. If your students have those two things, they can learn whatever hot new skill the workforce needs. If all a student knows how to do is prompt an AI, so do millions of others. Congratulations.

To the students who believe that the AI is better than them at doing their writing/coding/math homework (yes, it might be), so there is no point in learning:

1: The end product of writing/coding/doing math was never the point. Refer to my two points on education.

2: Any fool can feed coins into a slot machine and pull the arm. What value do you provide?